Happy
by skypig21
Summary: Addictions, religious zealots, a Dream Machine and Wraith! Ronon hasn’t found a home in Atlantis, yet. And perhaps he never will. A Rononcentric story and a heavy McKay Bplot with lots of team goodness and whump to go around.
1. Part I, Chapter 1

**Happy**

By skypig21/IAmRightHere

Spoilers: "The Hive"

Summary: Addictions, religious zealots, Dream Machines and Wraith! Ronon hasn't found a home in Atlantis, yet. And perhaps he never will. This Ronon-centric story, with a heavy McKay B-plot, takes place just after mid-Season 2 and includes lots of team goodness and whump to go around.

**My deepest thanks to Aslowhite for her brilliant beta. I could not have completed this story without her talent, her insight into these wonderful characters and her perpetual encouragement.**

_A.N.: Please note that this story is completely written. I will attempt to post a new chapter every other day after my final edits are complete. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Thanks!_

**Part I: Dark Secrets**

**Prologue**

Ronon wants one. He wants one right now. Elizabeth talks, so he looks at her. McKay replies, so Ronon looks at him. But he's not really seeing them, or hearing them, either.

A few pods remain, hidden in his quarters. His mood elevates at the thought of walking in there, opening the shades to let the sunlight in, opening the windows as well, and grinding a pod between his teeth.

When the effects are peaking, Ronon forgets that he isn't living on land anymore.

When they're peaking is the only time that his memories are not tainted with despair.

The meeting ends. Ronon rises and tries to leave without too much rush, as if has no place in particular to go.

Sheppard's there, wanting to spar. "'Fraid I'll whip your ass this time?"

Sheppard's kidding, of course. Ronon has to remember that.

"You have no idea," he replies. "Not right now."

"How about a run?"

"Maybe later."

McKay's walking in front of them, poking at his datapad, taking his time. Ronon doesn't mean to but he can't help himself. He shoulders McKay aside with a terse apology and strides away from his teammates.

It's in his quarters, calling to him. Right turn, down the stairs, left turn. Thirty paces. He's in front of his door. The door opens. He's ten feet away, five feet. He's there, holding the small, black thing in his hand.

He places the pod in his mouth and bites down. Sweet bliss. Glorious satiety. His craving is so strong that he wants another before finishing the first. They are precious, though. Too precious to waste like that.

Lying on his bed, watching memories as they flood in around him, Ronon thinks that he is happy.

After a couple of hours, his delight fades. He can't focus, his limbs shake with chills and then fiery tingles. He doesn't take very much Happy, so he has yet to feel the brunt of heavy withdrawal and believes that he never will. Yet the compulsion hangs on him. Worst is the darkness, the mindlessness of being alive for one thing, which builds until he is nothing else but this want.

The last time he ran out, Ronon made deals with the gods, promised to forgo food and water and air and sleep if he could have just one, just one, just one.

They are hidden inside a cloth in a dusty corner under his bed. Only eight remain. Soon he will leave on another mission. Someone somewhere will surely have a few pods to barter. Ronon brings things to trade, tucks them here and there about himself. Last time, he traded a flashlight. This time he's procured a ballpoint pen, which someone may find useful. Worth at least fifteen pods, which will last a couple of weeks.

Although the botanical name for pods varies from planet to planet, they are known galaxy-wide as "Happy." Wild-grown pods produce a mild euphoria. However, the ones cultivated on the Ruined Planet, where the Vis live, are legendary for their strength.

In the beginning of his need, Ronon tested himself. Shots hit their intended targets. Hand-to-hand showed him consistently victorious. He was still better at defending himself than anyone else in the city.

But that was early on, before he lost himself.

OoOoO

"You still want it?"

"Why do you ask?" McKay's fingers pause above his laptop.

Ronon shrugs.

The scientist says, "Teyla took the enzyme, too."

"You took a whole lot."

"And it almost killed me."

"You still want it sometimes?" Ronon repeats.

McKay isn't looking at Ronon, but the Satedan is familiar enough with him to know his face is pinched with anxiety.

"Only under extreme circumstances," McKay answers quickly, then turns back to his work, subject closed.

So it's not just Ronon. This makes him feel a little better.

McKay removes a headset from its cradle. Ronon is vaguely aware that since locating it in the depths of Atlantis's vast laboratories, McKay's been working to decipher the strange hat's mysteries. Its dome-like shape indicates that it affects the brain somehow.

"What _is_ that?" Ronon inquires, his voice causing McKay's hands to fumble.

"Shhhh! Anything could happen if I dropped this!"

Ronon doesn't believe that a little thing with wires all over it could be the least bit dangerous. It has no blinking lights, doesn't even hum.

After making a small adjustment to one of the electrodes, McKay lays down the headset and looks over at his laptop.

"The database is vague, but I think it's supposed to record dreams. See this?" He points to the screen, at lines and letters that mean nothing to the Satedan. "The user wears the headset while sleeping. Unlike an electroencephalogram, the device captures brain activity in a visual rather than numerical format, then stores it in a repository located near where the device was found. It's possible that, using an interface connector, I can download the dreams in digital format to any computer in Atlantis. Neat, huh?"

"Huh."

"Imagine kicking back and watching your dreams like you would a TV show."

"I don't watch TV."

Rodney looks up. "Well, you would if you were on Earth. Probably SportsNet with a beer in one hand and a bowl of chips in the other."

"Watching TV's a waste of time. So's watching dreams."

Ignoring the Runner's jab, he says. "Well, I'm sure you have much more important things to do, like hitting punching bags and gulping down protein shakes. So why don't you go and do that?"

Ronon wishes he felt like working out. If the pods aren't affecting him, and he doesn't think that they are, then he must be coming down with something. His fingers tingle at the thought of the pods, safe in their dark corner.

Ronon leaves the lab. His motivation to pummel sandbags has declined recently. The pods aren't to blame. They can't be.

**Chapter 1**

McKay doesn't have to see her to know that Teyla Emmagen stands watching him just outside the entrance to his lab. She is just beginning to regain her strength. Each day, after visiting with Sheppard in the infirmary, she comes to the lab for a few minutes. Absorbed in his work, Rodney removes some snack wrappers and empty coffee cups from his workspace but doesn't look up as Teyla approaches.

She walks slowly, trying to minimize her limping waddle.

"Ronon said you had a new toy. This is you?" she asks.

On Rodney's laptop monitor, blurred images vaguely resembling people shift from side to side, as if captured on an out-of-focus hand-held movie camera.

"Actually, I think it's my father." He points to what might be a person's midsection. "He's wearing a sweater under his suit jacket. Very Dad-like."

The thing that might be a person disappears from the screen, replaced by a swatch of blue and yellow.

"That's Mom," Rodney explains.

Teyla's places a hand on the table to steady herself. Rodney, noticing, pulls over a stool.

"Your leg's giving out, again. Sit," he says.

Teyla says, "I am fine," but takes the stool that he offers.

"You shouldn't be up," he says, handing her a water bottle.

Teyla unscrews the top and drinks. "I grew bored lying about. How are you feeling?"

McKay absently touches his head.

"I'm fine."

"Perhaps I could help you with this…thing," she offers.

"You can't help much, unless you've developed a sudden interest in electrical engineering."

She drinks more water. "Then I will help by ensuring that you work when you are able and rest when you must."

Rodney says, "I'm not tired," even though he is.

He works for a while longer, idly talking to himself as much as to Teyla about the fuzzy pictures, until he notices her grasping the edge of his worktable to keep from falling over.

"I'll call Carson," he says, nervously reaching for his radio.

"Do not!" she says, raising a hand to stop him. "He is busy with other things. I will return to my room"

Rodney walks Teyla to her quarters, stopping when she does in the passageways to rest. The healing laceration to the side of his head is still red and sore, but the scar will show only a little past his hairline.

It seems very awkward and it seems just about right when Teyla gently turns his head to view the site of his injury. Her puzzled expression reveals that she is trying to recall what happened to them that day.

"What did you tell Dr. Weir?" she asks.

"Only what little I remember. Once Sheppard recovers, he might be able to fill in the gaps."

John Sheppard has only just opened his eyes and still can't utter a single recognizable word, although all of the vowels and a few consonants have come back.

Teyla rubs her forehead, betraying frustration as well as fatigue. Rodney would just as soon not reminisce until he's well enough to handle it.

"We almost died, Teyla. All of us. Ronon, too. Big guy might be scary, but I'm sure it wasn't his fault," Rodney says, rubbing his hands, betraying his uncertainty.

She appears to accept this for now. They are much too close to the events to have any real clarity about them. They have arrived at Teyla's quarters and, for all of her bravado, the woman ought not to be up doing anything right now.

"See ya," he says, as Teyla's door closes behind her.

Now that Teyla's out of his hair, McKay returns to his lab and closes the door. Perhaps later he'll stick a sign on it that says "Go away!"

Trying to recalibrate the interface module to sharpen the data transfer from the Dream Machine, as he calls it, is high-density work requiring absolute concentration.

Only Ronon made it back from their last mission unharmed. McKay's memories of what happened are as scattered as Teyla's. Sheppard can't speak, and Ronon won't. The swirling images captured so far by the Dream Machine fascinate him. Answers to Elizabeth's questions and their own about what happened that night could be just a good night's sleep away.

OoOoO

"Oh!" he cries, bolting upright in his bed. The headset falls askew over his eyes. Disoriented, Rodney whips it off and takes deep breaths to calm the heartbeats banging in his ears. Frightening though it may have been, this particular nightmare is now successfully captured on a playback disk.

With shaking hands, Rodney attaches the headset to the playback module, then connects the module to his laptop. He bathes and dresses as the transfer takes place.

A few minutes later, an on-screen pop-up window reads "Transfer Complete."

As he reaches to disconnect the headset from the playback module, Radek Zelenka buzzes in over his radio.

"Busy," McKay replies.

"We need to discuss several projects this morning, Rodney."

"Busy!" he repeats.

"When can we…"

"When I'm not busy." He removes his radio. Sitting on his bed, laptop on the mattress beside him, McKay holds his hands together tightly as if in prayer before releasing a single index finger to press the "Enter" button.

"Keep telling yourself 'It's only a dream'."

OoOoO

His dream remembers with pristine clarity Rodney's version of the events that shook them all to the core.

He straps on his wristwatch, looks at himself in the bathroom mirror, preparing to leave on a simple exploratory mission. Then he's in the gateroom and Teyla appears to his right. She pats Ronon's belly lightly and says, "You are getting fat!"

Ronon steps away from Teyla and looks down at himself.

Another voice sounds in the room. "Cleared to go."

He's in the wormhole, then enters a new and different world.

Rocks, trees, including some with little yellow fruits on them. The gate stands in a treed area, unusual but not terribly so. He wishes more gates had trees in front of them; the better to smash darts into.

Evidence of occupation: A shallow, open well that mirrors Rodney's face when he looks down into it. A line of smoke rising into the windless sky. Sheppard and Teyla creep catlike ahead of him. Ronon brings up the rear, but he is distant, not his usual blanketing presence.

As they round a hillside, Sheppard signals to halt. He and Teyla make themselves small close to the ground. McKay does the same. Scuttling a little closer, he sees Wraith. Humans and Wraith together, conversing, exchanging items…a sight as incongruous as those amusing paintings he's seen of dogs playing cards. Three humans and three Wraith, sitting beside a friendly campfire. This doesn't happen, and yet it has.

The playback has no audio, so Rodney's returning memories fill in the missing pieces.

The sound--a snap, like a ripe apple being pulled from the tree. The Wraith look up. The three humans with them follow their gaze. McKay feels naked, completely exposed. In a flash Teyla pulls at him, jerks him back the way they'd come. A stunner rips into a tree beside him, sending splinters into his head as he turns away. Teyla's tiny hand grips his wrist with exceptional strength.

Sheppard shouts, "Where the hell's Ronon!"

Blood runs down McKay's forehead, blinding him as it streams into his eyes. He pulls salty droplets of it into his mouth as he gasps for breath on the run.

Sheppard turns to shoot and takes a hit to the shoulder and another to the gut, not bursts from a stunner but projectiles. He twists from the impact, begins to fall as Ronon darts in from the woods and catches his comrade before he hits the ground.

But Ronon's slower than usual, and Teyla pulls McKay past him. He hears Ronon panting, breath whistling between his teeth as he hoists Sheppard onto his shoulders.

The dream sends Rodney back to the gateroom before this mission. Teyla pats Ronon's stomach. "You are getting fat!" She pats his stomach again. "…getting fat!"

The dream returns to its own present tense.

Teyla goes down as a heated length of metal slices through her calf, sending her sprawling with a cry of alarm and agony.

"Teyla, up!" Rodney pulls at her elbow with one hand, wipes blood out of his eyes with the other.

McKay wonders at the marvels of adrenalin for he runs and runs to the edge of his strength and then surges beyond that. He sees the gate through bleary eyes, longs for its welcoming glow. Ronon's firing his blaster, taking down one, two pursuing figures. Teyla's letting McKay drag her along, but she's gone quiet. McKay would be much less terrified if she were screaming her head off.

He dials. It's a complex journey home, first to one deserted world and then to another, then to Atlantis, still hidden in the galaxy.

They stumble through to PX7-something or other, stay long enough to dial another world and dial again for home. All the while, Ronon keeps Sheppard aloft on his broad shoulders.

"Where did you go?" Rodney demands, dialing one last time.

"I'm sorry," Ronon replies.

"Bad time to have to take a leak," he mutters.

"I got lost."

McKay jerks as the dream ends and his laptop screen goes blank. He feels almost retraumatized by watching that terrible night. He'd forgotten so much.

The horror that woke him that morning was not his recollection of Sheppard bleeding and going into respiratory failure from the toxic, needlelike ammunition fired into him. Nor was it Teyla's hitching breaths as the same poison raced through her system. What pulled McKay right out of his own nightmare was the Satedan's voice cracking as he offered his lame excuse:

"I got lost."

"I got lost."

"I got lost."

TBC


	2. Part I, Chapter 2

**Part I, Chapter 2**

John Sheppard doesn't even strike him very hard, but the bantos rod connects with the side of Ronon's head like a car into a building. Sweat and spittle fly off Ronon's face and hit the mat on which they are sparring. Any other day and John's opponent would be madder than a fruitbat with rabies, aghast at someone four inches shorter and many pounds lighter nailing him so perfectly. Sheppard waits for the _contra coup_ to flatten him. Instead, Ronon shakes his head, pushes back his hair and retreats off the mat to the room's no-fly zone.

"You're not quitting on me, are you?" Sheppard asks.

Ronon slouches to the bench, places a hand over his sore cheek, head down so John can't see him.

"I am," he responds.

"I'm fine, if that's what's worrying you. C'mon, I can take you with one hand tied behind my back."

With a headshake, Ronon remains seated. Sheppard's seen this look before, on people who have given up entirely. He's never felt that way about anything, so it's hard for him to relate, although he certainly tries.

"Look, everyone makes mistakes. You got distracted…"

"I didn't."

"…Ran off…"

"I thought I saw Wraith in the woods."

Sheppard's unwilling to argue. He notices Ronon's drawn face, the little potch of his belly where steely muscle used to be.

He tries again. "Maybe the Doc should look you over."

With that, Ronon rises and collects his stuff. He strides out the door before John even realizes he's leaving.

"That went well," Sheppard tells himself, rotating his shoulder, which has healed remarkably well. The shot to his middle has left him with a small purplish surgical scar that will eventually fade. Most bothersome are occasional tremors, aftereffects of the needles.

"Two of them," Beckett had said, holding up the thin rod. "Poisoned, too."

John, still bedridden but able to engage in meaningful conversation, had looked at the thing, wondering why it hadn't just gone right through him, until he noticed the concave disc at the top.

"This stopped it?"

Beckett had nodded. "Poisoned darts don't work unless they stay inside the body. Very effective, this. Relatively low velocity I would think. If the needle doesn't kill you, then the poison will."

John had to agree. It took him almost a week to wake up after Carson realized what was happening and administered a reasonably effective counteragent, and a few more days before he was completely re-engaged in the world around him. Others had already spoken with Elizabeth Weir about the strange alliance around the campfire, the three Wraith and three humans sharing a convivial evening. By the time he was able to speak intelligibly, this was old news.

Leaving the gym, John goes to the mess before showering and returning to duty. He sees Teyla there, seated with a couple of Marines, who are laughing at something she's said.

"Mind if I join you?" he asks.

The Marines look up. It amuses him to see how quickly their smiles vanish.

Teyla grins winningly. "Certainly, John." She motions to a seat.

One of the Marines looks at his watch.

"Time to go," he says, nudging his friends. "We'll see you around," most likely referring to Teyla alone.

They leave and John feels fatherly and brotherly.

"You seen Ronon lately?"

"I see him all the time," Teyla replies. She looks at her cafeteria tray, fiddles with some crumbs on it. "You know that."

"Yeah. I do."

They are quiet for a few moments. Neither of them is a gossip.

John fetches a bottle of water and a sandwich. He beckons Teyla up, so they can walk together.

In the hallway, Teyla begins. "I am concerned about him. He does not wish to be seen by anyone. He did not visit the infirmary while we were there."

"He hasn't said anything about what's bothering him?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing."

"Says he saw Wraith in the woods and got turned around when he went to look for them."

"Perhaps he did. You do not believe him?"

John honestly doesn't know what to believe. He remembers little of the incident save for the apparent alliance witnessed before the campfire. After that there was a lot of pain and confusion, then nothing, as the poisoned needles affected him.

He smiles a little. "I could have sworn I saw clowns giving candy to children."

"Clowns?"

"Yeah. You know, big hair, face paint…"

"Rodney did not mention any clowns."

The thought of explaining wears him out. He probably shouldn't have tried sparring so soon in his recovery, but he'd hoped it would revive him somehow.

Teyla still limps a bit when she walks. The team will not be visiting other worlds together until every member is suitably mended.

"I don't suppose McKay has any ideas."

"He spends a great deal of time in his quarters working on something. A notice on the door requests that he not be disturbed."

They walk to the residential area. Along the way, Sheppard shows Teyla his needle scars and she shows him hers.

"You're catching up with me," he says, good naturedly.

When Rodney's door comes into view, it does, indeed, bear a sign warning visitors to leave or face dire consequences.

"You think we should knock?" Sheppard asks.

"What does this mean?"

She points to a piece of paper that says, "Refer to the warning sections of Zelenka's copy of 'Oxidization for Dummies' before deciding whether or not to bother me."

"He's probably sleeping." Sheppard raises his hand, but Teyla stops him.

"Then we should let him alone," she says. "He did not escape the planet unscathed. If he remembers anything, I am certain that we will be the first to know."

OoOoOoO

Rodney's shoulders relax when the voices outside his door finally stop.

Terrifying yet compelling, images of the attack play out before him on his laptop. Having watched the playback several times, McKay's convinced that the dream can show him more. Shoving aside the myriad things he must do to keep the city operational, he rechecks the Ancient database, looking for additional clues into how the headset works. The vague references to it give away nothing of its purpose or potential.

Ignoring his fear so the facts will shine through, Rodney starts the dream playback again.

Yellow fruits lie where they fell under the tree. Teyla's hair moves as she glances left and right. Tiny insects hover above the well opening as he looks in. Ronon strolls far behind him.

Wraith and humans cluster beside the fire. One of the humans hands an object--small, blue, about the size of a deck of cards--to one of the Wraith, who sniffs it, pulls off a corner with his sharply tapered nails and places the bit in his mouth…

A snap--quick, subtle, but magnified to gunshot loudness in Rodney's dream—made not by an animal running away or a stray tree branch falling.

It was Ronon, the stealthiest man Rodney's ever met.

The tree beside him splinters as a stunner hits it. His vision blurs as blood falls into his eyes He waits for the welcome sound of Ronon's blaster powering up, waits and waits and waits, but it doesn't come.

"_Where the hell's Ronon!_"

Ronon, who never misses.

OoOoO

Leafing through magazines and watching videos from Earth, Ronon has discovered that a great number of people there have insatiable cravings. They inject drugs, eat too much, smoke a plant called tobacco that fouls their lungs. Pills and powders and elixirs of all sorts imprison them—alcohol, cocaine, heroin, pills, chocolate... The whole planet is a huge, gaping maw wanting to be constantly filled and fed and placated.

Weeks after the Wraith enzyme left Ronon's body, he still hungered for the strength it gave him, the sensation that he'd shed a weak skin and replaced it with impenetrable metal. Having the drug in his system felt crazy and beautiful, made him want to kill people or fuck them or just love them deeply forever.

Nothing else can give him that kind of high, not even Happy. But, while the enzyme's power is known to few, everyone in the galaxy knows about Happy. Had he not been at the Anzoran market that day, had the spice merchant not been selling there, Ronon might never have tried it. Now Happy is all that he wants, and wanting it is all that he _is_ anymore, and no one is more surprised about this than he.

Vendors on Anzora offered cooking utensils, animals and colorful fabrics for sale. The spice merchant stood behind his selling table, watching with interest as shoppers strolled by.

"Your pleasure, big man," he said, as Ronon peered into open sacks bearing fragrant seeds and ground roots.

"Don't want anything," the Runner responded.

"You seem like a poor cook to me. Perhaps you seek more potent fare."

"Not interested."

The seller reached under a small brocade cloth. Alert for danger, Ronon tensed, brought his hand close by his weapon.

The spice merchant smiled. "You'll need none of that here." Then he brought forth a wooden box studded with colorful stones. Inside lay dozens of pods, fat ones, cleaned and picked over to remove all traces of the fruit pulp in which they grew.

"Said I'm not interested."

Then the spice merchant plucked from the pile the largest pod of all. He laid it on the silken cloth covering his table, where the tiny, black object stood out against the shining fabric.

"Just one. Make your woman love you if you gave her a gift like this."

Ronon knew about Happy, its potential for abuse. But he sometimes wanted Wraith enzyme and he sometimes wanted to relax and trust people and laugh at their humorous remarks.

It was only one.

"Don't have any money."

The merchant handed the pod to him. "Go on. Take it. Pay me when you visit again."

Ronon knew he shouldn't accept this gift. But it was only one tiny little thing. Just one.

Upon his return to Atlantis, Ronon and Sheppard ran a few for miles around the city. They went far from the main tower, to the western edge, where the sun struck them full-on as it slid down the sky toward nightfall. Clean ocean air dried the sweat on their bodies.

Ronon was just beginning to feel settled in the Ancient city. The transition had been difficult for him; his comfortable bed served only to remind him of the suffering the Wraith bring to other worlds every day.

"You know," Sheppard said, when he'd caught his breath, "you're doing a great job. On my team, I mean."

It was embarrassing to hear this.

"Thanks," said Ronon.

"You still want to stay on here?"

"We'll see what happens."

They ran, more slowly this time, to the city center. Some guys that Sheppard knew, military types, were having a meal together in the mess. John approached them and asked if they would mind some more company.

"Sure," said one, someone Ronon hadn't sparred with, yet.

"I'll eat in my room," Ronon said, and didn't offer an excuse or a reason.

When he finished eating, Ronon opened the windows in his quarters. The breezes of daytime had faded with the sky, so the curtains hung still.

A thin gush of liquid rolled under his tongue as he bit down and broke the pod between his teeth. With eyes closed, a beautiful world opened up to him, swallowed him down its inviting gullet.

Melena knew him so well. He showed her his darkest secrets, and she loved him anyway. After pushing away the memory of her for so many years, on this night he welcomed her back because with Happy he felt no pain to remember.

In time, he fell asleep. Never had he experienced such kind and beautiful dreams. Each one gave him joy beyond measure. Melena was not in all of these dreams. She was his beloved for the last couple of years that Sateda existed as a viable world. Before her, other lovers who gave him great pleasure, the memories of which that night made him shake in his bed.

By morning Happy's strongest effects had worn off and left a light euphoria in their place. Ronon worked with a couple of airmen in the gym, then accepted their invitation to eat with them. They joined others in the mess, people Ronon didn't know, but he sat with them anyway and found that he didn't always hate new people.

As the last traces of Happy went away, Ronon immediately wanted more. When he had a moment alone, he sometimes picked up two pods, or even three, at markets they visited while adventuring around the galaxy. Always he obtained just a few, always bartered with small trifles he picked up in Atlantis: picture frames or cotton balls, never weapons or dangerous things.

Then came the day when he stopped wanting and started needing, when McKay said he looked pale and when Ronon himself felt worse than when the Wraith enzyme wore off. Instead of fond memories, then, he dreamed of having hoards of pods, instead.

That was how it began, how Happy inveigled itself into his life.

OoOoO

The seatbelt light goes on with a ding, but McKay ignores it. A flight attendant brings him a cocktail. Looks like a Seven and Seven.

He glances up from a scholarly journal, the text of which is written in Ancient. "I didn't order anything."

"He paid for it," the attendant replies.

Griffin smiles across the aisle at him.

The plane shudders and stalls. A moment later, it hits the ocean and McKay is thrown down, hitting his head on an armrest as he goes.

Now Griffin sits in the pilot's chair, feverishly working the controls. Water seeps in from some hidden fissure.

Zelenka's disembodied voice says, "Move to the rear compartment…"

Freezing water rises, stunningly cold as it creeps up McKay's legs. The windshield cracks. Then it's solid. Then it cracks again.

"Move to the jumper's rear compartment…" Radek repeats

"This isn't a jumper!" Rodney shouts. "This is a plane!"

Griffin pushes McKay out of the cockpit. "Good luck, Rodney" he says, slamming the door in Rodney's face.

Slamming the door in Rodney's face.

Slamming and slamming and slamming…

McKay stops the playback. His eyes burn from peering at the monitor for so long.

His dream collection now contains several files. Rodney watches them whenever he can, usually in his quarters, where people won't look over his shoulder and ask stupid questions. As he replays last night's capture by the Dream Machine, McKay knows that he is supposed to be working on other things, but nothing holds the fascination that his dreams do.

Through Rodney's diligent efforts, the playback now contains HDTV-quality visuals and sound.

Having picked through more of the database, Rodney believes that emotional and additional sensory output can be obtained by donning the headset during playback. In this way the playback would not only allow the viewer see and hear dream experiences, but feel them, as well.

Elizabeth calls him to her office, asking about progress on other things.

"Where are you on the underwater stabilizers?"

"I've made some headway," he replies.

"Such as?"

"Such as things that I'd much rather work on than talk about."

She levels her gaze at him. Scary. "Try me."

If nothing else, McKay is a beautiful swimmer in the pool of technical babble. The words slide effortlessly from his lips, swan dives of "simulations" and "counterbalances."

When he is finished, Elizabeth sits, chin resting on her hands, profoundly unimpressed.

"You haven't done anything, have you?"

"Not really. But listen, I'm working on something truly amazing."

"What?"

"I can't tell you."

She leans back and places her hands on the edge of her desk, a familiar signal that she is nearing the end of her patience. McKay zeros in.

"But I _will_ tell you. Just not now. It's a surprise."

"I don't like surprises."

"I know you don't, but this is a _good_ surprise! Give me a few more days. I promise you'll love it!"

He thanks her and leaves before her consent reaches his ears. In his quarters, McKay watches a couple of playbacks, then takes the headset to the lab for further refinement.

Sleep refuses to come that night until he begs an Ambien off Carson. The drug plunges him into the lengthiest REM sleep he's had in ages. Initial playback shows numerous dreams piled one on top of the other. Both the visuals and the sound need separation and boosting. This will take many hours, many fascinating hours pulling the threads of thought apart, settling each in its own disk.

Nothing could pull him away from the device today.

TBC


	3. Part I, Chapter 3

_A.N.--Thanks to all who sent feedback and to everyone following this intricate story. Your support is greatly appreciated. Posting two chapters today, a longish one and a shorter one. Enjoy! _

**Part I, Chapter 3**

Rodney can't avoid Elizabeth much longer. She's demanding he show her the surprise. Looking over the dozen files containing his dreams, he tries to find something interesting but not too revealing.

Obviously, he won't be sharing any dream with sex in it. Neither will Elizabeth nor any one else be allowed to see dreams in which he and others sustained injuries. Childhood memories belong to him alone. Impressions of his teammates, of Samantha Carter, of everyone in Atlantis are not for public view.

In fact, none of his dreams will do.

Teyla looks at him suspiciously as he explains what the Dream Machine is all about and why he wants her to use it.

"You are certain that only Elizabeth will see them?"

"Completely."

"You will not show her your own?"

He shakes his head.

"What about Colonel Sheppard's dreams?"

McKay sputters out a chuckle. Ludicrous idea. Besides, Elizabeth probably isn't into porn.

"Perhaps Elizabeth would be willing to have her own dreams recorded."

McKay's already rejected that idea. "Show, then tell," he says. "Think of your help as making a sacrifice to increase knowledge and human understanding."

So Teyla takes the headset from McKay. He's relieved she's willing to do this for him. Recording night after night has made falling asleep difficult without medication. His precious dream library was worth the effort, but he needs a break.

The following morning, a rather rumpled-looking Teyla hands over the headset.

"It is most uncomfortable," she tells Rodney.

"Sorry. Do you want to see?" He points to his laptop.

Teyla's dreams last only a short while and are not very detailed. McKay's were like this at the beginning, as well, before he took Ambien to help him rest.

"I woke up many times," Teyla says.

"REM sleep provides the clearest data. See here, this is the light doze part…"

Trees appear and then John Sheppard climbs one of them. He speaks, but his voice can't be heard. Someone passes her a basket filled with colorful fruit. She and Ronon practice with bantos rods.

"It is just flashes of things," she comments.

"Looks like you're trying to find something to dream about."

On the screen, a Marine whom McKay has seen on occasion stands before Teyla on one of the outside balconies. Like Sheppard, he speaks too quietly to be heard.

McKay moves to adjust the sound level, but Teyla stops him.

She smiles shyly. "When Elizabeth comes to this part, the sound must be turned off."

"Sure," McKay says. He's very curious about what the man is saying and intends to replay the dream later with headphones on.

"And you must give me the disk after the meeting, as well. No one else may see it."

"What? No, it's going to be part of a dream library."

Her face hardens. He hates it when women do that to their features.

"Put your own dreams out for everyone to watch. I want mine back."

"Sure." He drops the matter without argument. His meeting with Elizabeth is still two hours away, more than enough time to copy the file to his hard drive.

"In fact, I want to keep the disk until we meet with Elizabeth."

"We?"

She looks ready to thump him.

"I will not allow anyone access to my dreams without being present myself. You did not presume that just anyone would be welcome to watch."

Actually, he did.

"Of course not," he says, handing her the disk. "After all, they're private."

OoOoOoO

"This is the bantos set that I received from my father. They were ruined in battle a long time ago…"

Teyla points out details of her dreams to Elizabeth as Rodney, who stand looking at the monitor over her shoulder.

Ronon takes a wild spill as Teyla sweeps his legs out from under him.

"I have always wished to do that," she says, smiling. Their dream-sparring runs for several minutes.

Elizabeth says nothing, just watches the dream play out like a documentary. Which it is: A documentary of Teyla's thoughts and feelings last night.

The Marine with Teyla on the balcony studies her with the age-old expression of desire and longing.

McKay looks away. Even if Teyla has no problem showing him this, he has a lot of trouble watching it with her right there.

At last, the dreams end, the final one fading quickly when Teyla wakes. Elizabeth sits up, as if awakening herself. The headset lies in its cradle next to her.

"Anyone can use this?" Elizabeth asks.

"I suppose," McKay replies.

"Fascinating. The implications are astonishing."

"See? Told you I was working on something big."

"And it is. Not that anyone would die if you'd never found this thing."

"Excuse me?"

Teyla removes the disk from the playback module and, with a glance towards Rodney, leaves the room. He feels put out that Teyla's not going to let him study her material.

Elizabeth continues. "I'll admit it's interesting, Rodney, but hardly useful. In the meantime, you've blown off your other projects and half of your people have nothing to do."

"Half?"

"The half that Radek doesn't supervise. You haven't been giving them assignments."

"They're not office hacks. What have they been doing, playing Tetris all day?"

Quickly excusing himself, Rodney returns to the lab, where he checks the status of pending projects. His involvement with the Dream Machine has dominoed into a staff free fall.

"You've done nothing for the past five weeks?" he asks his minions, incredulous.

Dr. DePetrio says, "You have final say, Dr. McKay."

"Yes, I do. So?"

"I'm waiting for your nod before moving on." He hands McKay his calculations and suggestions, all neatly typed on a datapad and dated almost a month ago.

McKay realizes that he's been out of touch with his city, caught up in his dreams as if he's been sleeping all this time.

Later, well past sundown, the headset sits in its cradle nearby, temping him, as he goes over his colleagues' work. One datapad after the other receives his attention.

Out of Ambien, intending to work through the night to catch up on all that he's missed, Rodney keeps noticing the headset, can't resist the possibility of trying to obtain even a few seconds of new material.

"I want to use it again tonight." He jumps at the sound of Teyla's voice.

Without thinking, he grabs the device and holds it to his chest. "You can't."

"Why?"

Thoughts of toys and sandboxes cross his mind, but he doesn't speak.

"Must I have a reason?"

"Someone else wants it."

"Someone else being you?"

"I found it."

"Your mother never taught you to share?"

Rodney doesn't mind arguing with Sheppard, but with Teyla it feels all wrong. She's been standing in the doorway. Now she moves closer. Such a tiny woman; able to take him down in an instant, like a bullet.

Without Ambien, Rodney won't sleep much. Even if he doesn't record, there's always playback to watch. One part of disk #9 needs another look through. He's in a room in that dream, someplace unfamiliar.

"Okay. Sure," he says, handing the Dream Machine to her, stretching his lips into a forced smile.

If McKay lets Teyla use the headset, if he's very nice to her, perhaps she will allow him to watch some of her playback. Sharing is one thing; deal-making quite another.

OoOoOoO

Ronon hasn't left Atlantis in a long time. His stash of pods is dwindling. Just knowing that he's running out makes him want them even more.

Thus, he is thrilled to learn that they intend to visit the planet where Ronon first acquired Happy from the spice merchant. Elizabeth hopes that someone there will supply insight or information about the curious campfire meeting between Wraith and humans.

Having packed a pair of scissors and a small picture frame, Ronon enters the stargate in a buoyant mood, eager to trade. To his utter dismay, the spice merchant isn't in the marketplace and his selling table lies empty.

Extremely adept at locating people willing to trade material goods for knowledge, Teyla heads for the tavern, a squat, falling-down shack in the center of town. The rank establishment stinks of sweat and smoke and spilled brew.

"Perhaps you can assist me," she tells the barkeep.

The keep, a short, squirrel-faced man with cunning eyes, glances at Ronon.

"I'd think your giant could give you the help you need."

Now in a rotten mood, Ronon stands taller, but notices how deftly Teyla evades the remark.

She says, "Our sources believe that a small group of Wraith and humans has come together as friends. Do you know of this?"

"We have none of them fools here," the keep responds.

"But you know of them."

"'Course."

He glances over his shoulder. A woman sits by the far wall. Before her on a table stand six empty glasses. Sheppard moves to approach her, but Teyla stops him.

"I will go," she says.

The Athosian walks to the woman's table and sits on a rickety chair opposite her.

McKay waits impatiently. "Great. The town drunk."

"Give it a chance," Sheppard replies.

The woman lulls her head around, pushes limp hair from her face. Teyla maintains a respectful façade, but unconsciously checks her tight ponytail for loose strands.

It takes a long time to get the woman to focus, but Teyla perseveres, working hard to earn a little trust. She orders up another glass of brew, which disappears in seconds down the woman's throat. Wiping her mouth on a raggedy sleeve, the woman speaks quietly, but Ronon can hear most of what she's saying.

"…He has half the brain of a _didot_ and is a million times more deadly!" and "…The entire planet. The galaxy!..."

Ronon's heart pounds in his chest. He can't believe his luck.

"A meal for you lot?" the barkeep asks, passing a plate of stew to another patron.

They shake their heads and watch the duet between Teyla and the intoxicated woman continue.

At last, their friend rises and comes back to them.

"Her name is Sava Omotaddi."

"Swell," McKay cracks. "When's her birthday?"

Teyla rolls her eyes. "She is a refugee from the Ruined Planet."

"You mean PG2-871?"

"I do not know, Rodney. When we return to Atlantis I will consult my Day Runner."

He looks stunned for a moment, then registers that Teyla is being sarcastic. Ronon grins widely.

"Does she know anything?" Sheppard looks over at the woman, who now leans against the far wall, apparently asleep.

"I believe Sava will tell us a great deal. For a price."

"Well, she can't have any C4."

"Not everyone wishes to blow up things, Colonel."

"Just saying."

"The people of the Ruined Planet are known as the Vis. Many left during and after the war there. Most wander the galaxy in search of work, food and Happy."

"You mean 'happiness'," Sheppard corrects.

"I do not. Happy is an inedible fruit the seeds of which contain an intoxicant. The wild fruits are largely worthless, and cultivated ones are grown in only a few places."

"'Happy'?" Sheppard asks.

"It's a galaxy thing." Ronon rises to leave the tavern.

Sheppard rubs his face. "You sure she won't settle for a few more drinks?"

"I am sure."

Rodney looks back at the woman with disgust. "She's just playing us."

"I do not think so. Before fleeing her world, she worked with Master D'lin, who has a plan for the Wraith. That is all she would tell me, but claims to know much, much more, but only if we bring her Happy from her home world"

Ronon is alternately horrified and overjoyed. How perfect that the one thing they may have to acquire is the one thing that he wants the most.

Leaving the tavern, they walk slowly, wrapped up in their discussion. Ronon looks again for the spice merchant, for anyone who might be selling pods. It is late, though, and the market vendors have left for the day.

They make their way back to the stargate. No taletell yellow fruits hang from bushes or trees. Worthless for some, perhaps, but a sufficient quantity of wild pods might do the trick for Ronon.

McKay and Teyla bicker, something he's never heard them do before.

"You had it last night," Rodney hisses.

"I want it again!" Teyla spits.

Interested, Ronon lengthens his stride to come up closer to them.

"You have had it many times, Rodney. Another night with me will not hurt you in the least."

They notice Ronon behind them and stop talking.

OoOoOoO

It's almost too easy. The drunk woman wants pods. No problem. They'll go to the Ruined Planet and fetch some for her. Ronon imagines groves of trees, all of them lined up and ready for him, a step away through the stargate.

"When do we leave?" Ronon asks Sheppard, as they emerge in the gateroom.

"Leave? We haven't even discussed this with Elizabeth yet."

"We can talk to her right now." He points up the stairway towards her office.

Sheppard stops short and narrows his eyes. "What's your rush?"

Ronon steps back, afraid that he's revealed too much.

"No rush. Just wanna get out of here for a while."

"We've _been_ out of here." The Colonel studies him suspiciously. "You thinking of leaving?"

"No," Ronon says, unable to look Sheppard in the eye.

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

Even though he takes only a little each time, Ronon's been too long without Happy. His hands shake and he knows he resembles McKay after too much coffee.

He says, "Just, you know, got a lot of energy." And he feints a right hook and bounces on the balls of his feet in a mini-spar.

Sheppard watches him, perplexed. "I'll see if Elizabeth is free," he says.

OoOoOoO

Elizabeth is indeed free. So are Teyla, McKay and Sheppard and everyone else he knows. They walk around all day without needing Happy. They have never needed it, never spent a moment of their lives thinking about how much they must have it.

Ronon's supply ran out several days ago, so he feels like he's sitting on a knife edge.

In meetings, people chatter on for hours about Master D'lin and how he famously destroyed most of his planet in a misguided attempt to save it.

"I'm surprised you were unaware of the Ruined Planet," Teyla says.

Elizabeth responds, "It's a big galaxy. What is the planet's real name?"

"The word means 'tranquil beauty.' We do not speak it so as to honor its memory. The Master is very religious. Some say he worships a being that only he can see, someone he made up out of madness. The war was over faith more than anything else. Master D'lin believed that Happy was destroying the souls of his civilization, so he made a war against the plants and the people who liked using them."

"Killed people for that?"

"Yes, and, once his own country was destroyed, he set out for other nations until the entire world was laid bare. It was very sad. We see refugees from time to time. Strangely enough, many want Happy, as if the war only made their craving for it stronger."

"This Master D'lin. Was he elected? Was there a coup?"

Teyla chooses her words carefully. Ronon loves her tact. "He was elected, but the results are still in dispute."

Rodney turns away from Teyla and addresses the room. "If there isn't any of this Happy stuff left on the Ruined Planet, why should we go there?"

"It's there. I say we go." Ronon can't keep quiet any longer. Perhaps he spoke a little too loudly, because everyone looks at him.

Elizabeth folds her hands. "Alright, Ronon. What makes you think…?"

"The woman said they had it." He must keep their focus on the drunkard in the tavern, not on himself.

McKay pipes up, "For all we know, the Wraith could have turned around and sucked the life out of those guys by the campfire. Or else the humans were Wraith worshippers."

"Feeding them blue spongy things?" Sheppard says. "You said you saw the humans passing food to the Wraith. Does that sound normal to you?"

As the conversation continues, Ronon's impatience escalates. Goosebumps rise on his arms, as a deep chill hits him, another sign that he needs more.

"So you think looking into this is a waste of time."

"Maybe not your time, Elizabeth, but my time, yes."

"How are those projects coming along?" she asks him.

Ronon doesn't know what she's talking about, but McKay's face turns red and he clears his throat.

"Rodney is right," Teyla interjects.

"I am?"

"Yes, of course you are." She is unabashedly flattering. "There is nothing to be gained on the Ruined Planet. Our time would be better served staying here."

"Because the humans were probably worshippers." McKay states

"Yes," she responds

"Exactly.".

Sheppard is leaning back in his chair, carefully eyeing his teammates. "Teyla, now you think this Sava person is lying?"

"I do. Happy addicts are notorious liars. Everyone knows that."

"So you don't think it's worth pursuing, either."

"I do not."

"Neither do it," says McKay, with stubborn finality.

After sniping at each other for weeks, Teyla and Rodney's unexpected harmony threatens to scrap the mission, something that Ronon simply cannot allow to happen.

"You don't know anything for sure," he says, trying to keep from showing his unease. "The woman is willing to give us information cheap. We find some pods, give 'em to her, let her talk. The sooner the better."

"Well, fine," says McKay. "But it's not a four-person job. I'd rather stay here and work on my…projects."

Ronon doesn't care whether McKay goes or not. Or Teyla and Sheppard.

"No problem, McKay," he says. "I'll go by myself if you want."

Sheppard slides back into the conversation. "I think I'll tag along. And it might be a good idea, since we're a _team_, to work like a team. You know. _Together_."

Rodney's face falls, and Teyla's goes with it. Ronon doesn't know what they're up to, but it has made them both extremely amusing to watch.

Surprisingly, Teyla knows a great deal about the pods. With a vanquished sigh, she begins. "Happy grows throughout the galaxy, but the best comes from the Ruined Planet, a world balanced on Master D'lin's fingertip."

Elizabeth asks, "Why do people take Happy?"

"A liquid inside the pods contains a substance that creates waking…dreams." She pauses, as if embarrassed.

"A hallucinogen?" Weir prompts

"Yes, like that," Teyla says. "I am told these dreams are so perfect that after ingesting a single pod the user cannot resist taking more. They grow on shrubs that reach the height of small trees. The bright-yellow fruits have no value; only the seed pods are consumed. I have no idea where on the planet we will find them. We could look for days and find nothing."

She shrugs heavily, still trying to convince Elizabeth to scrub the mission.

Rodney fidgets with his watch strap. "Obviously, the Ruined Planet is still politically unstable."

That's it. Ronon's heard enough talk talk talk. "Gotta get it from the Ruined Planet. That's what the woman wants." He places shaking hands in his lap and leans forward to hide them.

OoOoOoO

One day later, they are ready. No one knows how it's been for Ronon since he finished the last pod. The sleeplessness and depression. His outbursts of temper. Part of him feels more energetic, the familiar side that used to love moving his body, making it strong. And then the part of him that is wanting and needing and craving sends him sprawling on his bed, beseeching the empty air around him for relief.

The only thing keeping him sane is the thought of finding an entire grove of yellow fruit and crushing a handful of pods between his back teeth. He can't wait can't wait can't wait for that to happen.

TBC


	4. Part I, Chapter 4

**Part I, Chapter 4**

As usual, McKay couldn't sleep without his twin pacifiers: Ambien and the headset. He hates offworld travel these days, and especially hates doing it with Teyla. She tried to get them both out of having to run this mission only because staying home means more chances to wheedle the headset out of him. Sometimes she does this by promising to let him see parts of her dreams—five minutes, ten minutes.

In his dream the previous night, Teyla appeared at his side. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm watching a dream of myself watching myself dreaming," he responded.

It's been like this for a while. No new material, always the same story over and over: Dreaming about the act of dreaming rather than dreaming alone.

That morning, before their travels to the Ruined Planet began, Teyla stormed up to Rodney, barely restraining herself from striking him.

"You have been watching my playback without permission!"

"It was in the laptop when I turned it on," he countered, but his face gave him away.

"Do not lie to me, Rodney."

Then she swept past him, hastily checking her weapon. Quick movements attested to her level of annoyance with him. He'd been so careful: sneaking into her quarters, finding one of the playback disks he hadn't viewed yet. A quick copy and he was done. What trick had she used to catch him?

OoOoOoO

Dawn is just breaking over Maisica, the pulverized city on the Ruined Planet in which the stargate stands.

Rodney watches Ronon sniff the fetid air. The Runner's eyes used to match Sheppard's, with a sharp glint of profound concentration. Today they have a feverish quality, a desperation that Rodney's never noticed before.

The Ruined Planet won't give up its pods for nothing. They all carry packets of seeds to trade.

Junk and parts of buildings and rusting machinery lie in piles, like frozen waves, some so high and close to the gate that a puddle jumper would have crashed right into them. They have been to many worlds sucked dry by the Wraith. A pity that this place killed itself.

"Anyone know where to look?" Sheppard asks, then climbs a hill of garbage and looks about.

"Out of town," Ronon follows him up and doesn't stop moving. "Farm, maybe."

Rodney searches for energy readings. So far, his monitor is idle.

"Zilch," he sighs. "Just once I'd like a break. We might have to walk for miles."

"You could use some exercise," Ronon says, as Teyla smiles beside him.

Taking umbrage, he responds, "Don't laugh, Teyla. You're stuck on this mission as long as I am."

Her face stiffens almost imperceptibly, but Rodney sees it and adds a point for his side.

They walk on, making slow progress over the debris, like climbing sand dunes. From time to time, they pass simple painted signs nailed onto wooden posts.

The signs say things like "We become like what we worship" and "Everything is difficult before it is easy."

They pause beside one of the signs, taking a break for water and snacks.

"'Crusade for the Master and the Divine One will be pleased,'" Rodney wryly observes. "Job sharing. Cool. Wonder if anyone actually works here."

But they hear nothing, not even a distant grunt of a backhoe. The city is dead and looks like it will remain so.

By nightfall, the exhausted team holes up in the remains of a private home not far from the western edge of town. Ronon wants to walk farther, offers to take point, for he can see in the dark better than they.

Sheppard declines. "We'll stop for the night. I don't want any of us stumbling over this stuff in the dark."

Ronon rubs his hands together. "We're wasting time."

"We're. Staying. Here."

Ronon turns away and gazes up at the pock-marked moon rising red behind weathered beams and rotting boards.

Still furious with Rodney, Teyla's been silently slamming him all day, not even trying to prevent crumbling masonry from sliding his way, holding out a hand for him to grasp and then pulling it away at the last moment.

She wants to use the Dream Machine as much as he does. When they get back, their deal will have to be restruck. A night with the headset in exchange for ten minutes' playback isn't fair. He wants more, a lot more. An hour of playback at least, possibly two.

Finishing his MRE—ravioli, a favorite—McKay notices Ronon sitting off away from them, irritably tossing pebbles out the shattered window next to him while Sheppard watches the huge Satedan out of the corner of his eye.

The place they are resting in has a workable fireplace made of cement blocks. Sheppard's pulled together some wood and lit a little fire for warmth and reassurance. The flames illuminate Teyla, who has already fallen asleep, no doubt drained by her own anger. McKay looks at her and feels weary with remorse.

Ronon offers to take second watch, the worst one, in the dead of night. Sheppard insists the Satedan take first.

"I'll take 'em all if you want," Ronon proposes.

"I don't want," Sheppard replies testily.

The soldiers stare at each other. Ronon holds a small object, a chunk of masonry he picked up somewhere. Now he throws it as hard as he can through the jagged window opening, so far that it takes many seconds to hit something. The sound echoes in the silent night.

OoOoOoO

Sheppard's no fool. He's noticed the fracture between McKay and Teyla, and the one between Ronon and everybody else. Unfortunately, officer training didn't include supervising antsy volunteers in other galaxies. Ronon has revealed very little of himself since joining the team. Whatever more there is to tell of his life on the run, he hasn't shared it with anyone yet, and maybe never will. If Ronon really wants to strike out on his own, Sheppard hopes it will not happen on this creepy, dead world.

Teyla gets along pretty well with McKay, due in large measure to the Athosian's legendarily long fuse. Whatever's eating them today may well be something they can work out for themselves.

He shifts uncomfortably, annoyed by other people's problems.

Second Watch is special. Everyone is so far down the well of sleep, a quiet desertion of post would surely go unnoticed.

The fire has died to cinders.

"Going somewhere?" Sheppard asks, when he sees his newest team member awake and creeping towards the back door of the cottage in which they are resting.

Ronon points to the crumbled city outside. "Water," he says, the Satedan term for urination.

Sheppard shifts on the piece of block he's using as a seat, then signals Ronon over.

"You gotta tell me these things, okay?"

Ronon gazes around impatiently.

"Look, I need to know where every member of my team is at all times. You go out and not come back, I might not know about it for hours. Got it?"

"Sure."

OoOoOoO

Ronon's up at first light, waking them all as he tears open his MRE and scuffles around inside and outside their campsite, pacing as he eats.

They break camp and walk to city's well-defined edge. Skirting the last fallen building and another painted sign ("Live devoted or not at all!"), they are suddenly out in the countryside.

Which is just as deserted as the city, but thankfully free of the damnable obstacles that slowed them to a crawl. On either side of the cracked roadway, at close intervals, stand thin, waist-high pipes. They have no faucets or caps at their tops, but are bent inward, so their openings point like unseeing eyes at the team as they pass.

Beyond the pipes lie mile after mile of barren fields, so lifeless not even weeds grow on them. Distant, striated cliffs sporting layers of colorful sedimentary rock break the monotony. At the base of one of these cliffs, barely discernable through a veil of dust kicked up by rampant winds, a small settlement can be seen.

Ronon's off in a flash. "I'll scout ahead!"

"Ronon, wait!" Sheppard knows that words won't work this time. "Damn it!" All those crappy sparring sessions. His disappearance when they encountered the campfire. Now this idiotic move. Ronon's become careless and given their position away.

"Where is he going?" Teyla moves to run as well, but Sheppard keeps her back. This is the Ruined Planet, a very dangerous place. He's taken the signs they've passed as warnings. "Live devoted or not at all!" Have they only two choices: devotion or death?

McKay retrieves the monitor from his pocket. "Energy readings."

"Where?" Sheppard sees nothing but the strange stanchions on either side of them and the vacant acreage beyond.

"All over the place." The scientist pokes at the monitor, pivoting on his heel to take in their surroundings.

Far up the road now, Ronon gambols over the fissures and gullies in the paved surface. Head high, he plows forward like a devotee spying Mecca after a long pilgrimage.

Then activity, rushing around in the far enclave, busyness at Ronon's approach. At this distance it is like watching a flea circus from across the room. Maybe there are shouts carried away in the wind. Maybe a warning, but Sheppard can't hear it.

"Oh, no…"

"McKay?"

"It's under the road…" He doesn't finish, and Sheppard and Teyla are still drawn to their teammate, who has reached the outskirts of the settlement.

A flash. The tiny moving thing that is Ronon pitches backwards hard to the ground and lies there unmoving. It takes a while: one one thousand, two one thousand…

They all expect it, but when the sound of the shot finally reaches them, they flinch.

TBC


	5. Part I, Chapter 5

**Part I, Chapter 5**

_He's fat._

_No, Cob, it's muscle. See?_

Someone jiggles his arm.

_That's not muscle. That's fat. He's fat and lazy._

Ronon senses squinty-eyed looks passing over him.

_What did you do with the other people?_

_Shhh!_

The two voices stop. He's quite alone. So he sleeps.

Ronon comes to feeling as if he is still on the run: Weak and sick, royally pissed off and more than a little scared.

Blurred, confusing images swim before his eyes, as he tries to find a familiar sound or smell about him. He hears boots pacing on wood flooring and snuffled breathing. Fighting drowsiness, Ronon forces himself to focus, fights to open his eyes wider so he can see everything.

The tiny cabin in which he lies has white-washed plaster walls and a few lanterns hanging off low ceiling beams. Furniture—a table, a couple of rough chairs—fills up the remaining space. Two small windows and the door give away a higher purpose, for their thick, metal shutters tacked back against the wall have small apertures for gun barrels to poke through.

"You should take care how you approach strangers." A forgettably average woman comes into view: Skinny, with a sun-shriveled complexion, lank brown hair falling to her shoulders. She wears a rough cloth tunic over baggy, frayed trousers, and holds a baby on her hip. The child's little foot dangles. Ronon reaches up to touch it, but finds that his arms are bound by cloth restraints to the poles on a raised canvas cot. The woman steps away. "We thought you were insane. Perhaps you are."

Ronon's mouth is so dry, he can't unstick his tongue to make an intelligible response. So he says, "Pfuf," instead, to let them know he's listening.

"You might be interested to know the fates of your friends," she says. Ronon stills. "The woman went down last. I was impressed."

Ronon pulls his arms back to raise himself. Restraints dig into his wrists and ankles, leaving welts there. A wave of anguish races through him as he struggles for release. The woman, the baby, suddenly terrify him. So average and yet so powerful.

The woman pushes a pod into Ronon's mouth. "Bite."

The thick husk splinters when Ronon grinds it between his molars.

"Drink." She places a tin cup to his lips. Water mixes with the pod's syrupy goo.

_How did she know? _

The liquid races over and around his tongue, cool and sweet and crucial. Down his throat. Settling in his stomach. The cold water. The Happy.

The water loosens his tongue; the drug, his mind. This time, Happy betrays him, cannot assuage the empty disbelief that his friends are dead.

"Don't cry," she says, as if speaking to her baby.

"They were kind!"

"And their weapons? Kind, as well?"

Ronon lies back, exhausted by grief.

"Lots of people come here looking for Happy. They bring cloth and machinery and fuel, as if we could eat those things."

"We brought seeds."

"I found them. On you. On your friends. How did you know that we needed them so badly?"

Ronon shakes his head. Elizabeth decided that they carry seeds. He can't stop crying, missing Sheppard and Teyla, his beloved siblings, and even McKay, the childlike wizard.

"Sometimes crowds wanting Happy come through the ring, kicking up dust on the road like a herd of _lomizas_. And smelling just as bad. In their frenzy, they threaten us. Missionaries from Sardu say they will kill us if we do not believe."

"You kill them, too?"

"All of them, if we must. Strange about your friends, holding back on the road. They send you on ahead to watch you meet the fate that Happy had in store for you? Perhaps learn from your mistakes?"

"Didn't want me to go," he manages through miserable hiccups.

She wipes his face with a soft cloth, gently rubbing away grit and tears. He resists her help, turns as far away as his bindings will let him. Placing the cloth aside, the woman watches Ronon, turning his head to face her.

"Your comrades are gone, but we didn't kill them."

He watches her carefully for signs of lying.

"Cob insisted I test your loyalties." She sighs in annoyance.

"Where are they?" he says.

"You should know better than to charge at us."

"What have you done with them?"

"Once people need pods, they'll act stupid like you did. These ones were different."

"They don't need pods."

"Not yet. The Master will take care of that! But they were alive last I saw."

Ronon's been too long on his own, has forgotten the small things. From somewhere he finds "Please?"

"I helped bring them to the edge of Maisica. Cob and some overnight visitors carried them through the ruins and tossed them through the circle. I was busy with my baby and could not go that far."

The crying, his struggles, have started an ache in Ronon's chest. A small white bandage covers a patch of skin just right of center. Now a little blood spreads out on the covering.

The woman removes the bandage to reveal a tiny hole. But the pain travels down deep within him.

"Have you seen one of these?"

She holds up a thin metal rod, the point of which looks deliberately flattened. A poisoned needle like the ones Sheppard and Teyla took at the campfire.

"Yeah."

"Do you have them where you live?"

Ronon shakes his head.

The woman has been carrying her baby this entire time. The child sleeps perfectly balanced on her shoulder, as she uses both hands to change Ronon's dressing.

"The bone here stopped it." Her fingers linger on the opening, where one of his ribs meets sternum. A droplet of blood seeps out. "The needles themselves often make minor wounds. It's the _canbrill_ oil that kills."

Ronon recalls how close to death Sheppard and Teyla came before Dr. Beckett found a suitable antidote to the poison leeching through their bodies.

"It didn't kill me."

"Because I didn't want it to. At first, I didn't care. Your death would have been one among thousands I have seen with my own eyes."

The baby awakes and fusses, rooting around seeking milk.

"What changed your mind?"

"Seeds," she says, simply. "All of you. Seeds. A packet flew from your bag when you fell. So I brought you here and sent the gas to your friends on the roadway."

"Gas?"

"You didn't notice the pipe system?"

The strange, bent columns. "You built it?"

"Goodness, no! The military designed it to prevent people from Maisica from coming west to Sardu, where the Master lives. Soldiers used it when this farm was a defensive installation. The system worked fine when Cob and I came here after the war was declared over. The armies left forts and weapons and ammunition dumps unattended everywhere. We tried to make a farm here before seeds were criminalized. We do not kill everyone who comes by, only those who pose a threat. As you did."

She finishes tending Ronon's wound, then settles away from him and begins nursing her child, humming a light tune as the little one suckles. The sight of such tenderness mixes with the Happy she gave him, bringing new tears to Ronon's eyes. He lies listening to the wavering notes until sleep overcomes him.

OoOoOoO

"What do these grow?"

He opens sleep-crusted eyes. The woman holds one of the seed packets brought from Atlantis. The front shows a colored drawing of a dark-green, leafy plant. Below it is printed the word "spinach." Ronon's never asked the names of the things offered at the mess. It was enough simply to have something to eat.

"Plants," he replies.

"Yes, I see that. Are they to cook? Livestock feed?"

"Don't know."

She sighs with annoyance.

"Stick 'em in the ground and see," Ronon offers.

Opening the packet, the woman spills the seeds onto her hand, gasps with delight as they roll around in her palm. She counts each one, separating uncounted from counted with her pinky.

"Look at how many! We will feast!"

The bag that Ronon carried contains many, many seed packets. The woman must have stuffed Sheppard's and Teyla's and Rodney's in it once she found their supplies. There is more spinach, and also zucchini and corn and wheat and lots of others.

"You can't tell me what 'tomato' means?"

He shakes his head. "My friends can."

He bets she regrets tossing his mates through the gate like so much garbage. Thinking about them brings a sharp pain to his chest. They deserved better than what they got from him.

"You are a city man," she scoffs. "Like the stupid Master."

The sound of her infant's plaintive cry interrupts her. "He wants to be fed again."

And Ronon feels his own weakness, his own terrible need, and it sucks away his pride.

"I'll help you with the seeds. Grown 'em somehow."

She turns her back to him, gathering the child to her chest.

"How kind you are. Do you work for free?"

"I want…"

"I know what you want. But I have more important work for you."

The baby nurses and then sleeps. His mother walks to the end of bed and pinches one of Ronon's toes. He feels a bubbly sensation throughout his extremity.

"Feel that?" she asks. "And that?" pinching a toe on the other foot.

"A little."

"Good. Soon you will walk. The medicine I gave you to counter the _canbrill_ oil is working well. By nightfall you will be much better."

Then, hoisting the seed bag over her shoulder, she picks up her baby and leaves Ronon alone.

OoOoOoO

She takes him out of the cabin once Ronon feels ready to stand and walk about. Darkness shrouds the vast fields around them. Nearby stands a larger structure, the boxy, utilitarian shape speaking of military usage. Lantern light flickers in some of its small, occasional windows.

Ronon and the woman stand where packed earth meets tilled soil, now dried up and lifeless but still forming ridges where crops used to live. As Ronon ran towards the farm, he thought he'd seen groves of trees bearing yellow fruits, all ripe and waiting to be picked. Now he realizes how sick he was, how sick he will be when the drug wears off, for he imagined the trees, their glowing fruits. They meant more to him than anything at that moment, so much that he did not think of his friends' safety or even to level his blaster at the woman before she shot him.

"What do you hear?" she asks, ignorant of his dark thoughts.

"Nothing," he replies. Not a chirp or a buzz or a hum.

"What does it mean, to hear nothing in the night?"

Even in the dimness, he sees her clearly, looking for an answer. "Means nothing's around."

"We had enough before the Master came, before he made his war." She motions towards the barren landscape. "You hear nothing because the Master's armies scraped away the fields, put down chemicals that killed off most of the insects.

"'You will not grow the Demon Weed!' That's what the soldiers said when they came upon us living here. We had planted good things, beans and grains and fruits to sell at the market. No more. The poison still lies in the soil."

Not everyone studies science like Zalenka and McKay. Ronon knows little about how to make things grow. Just as McKay can barely aim a weapon to protect himself.

The woman kicks at a clod of dirt, which breaks apart and sends up a little dusty cloud.

"We can't grow things for ourselves," she says.

"Then what do you want seeds for?" Walking this short distance has tired him. He wants Happy. His body aches from the _canbrill_ oil and from the needle that hit so close to his heart.

"Sleep," she says, handing him a pod. "In the morning, you shall find out."

OoOoOoO

The Happy pod is a weak one. It helps him sleep, but that is all. No restraints are needed, for the woman is clever, knowing exactly how to keep Ronon from leaving her farm. Well past sunrise, he hears her footsteps on the gravelly path outside the cabin. She enters carrying water and square, spongy-looking items on a plate.

She sets the plate beside him. "Eat."

Not having eaten anything in a couple of days, Ronon is famished. Nevertheless, he takes his time studying what she has brought him: A tan square, a green one, a blue one and a pink one. All of them are the size and weight of a deck of wet playing cards.

The woman notes Ronon's curiosity about his breakfast.

"Trust me. They're edible."

He looks at her as she hands him the cup of water.

"Trust you? Don't even know your name."

"My name is Zin M'laba. And I know that you are called Ronon Dex from the things I found in your pack."

She breaks off a corner of one of the spongy wafers and hands it to him. It is tan-colored and has a musty aroma.

"This food is all you will have to eat until sunset. These are generous amounts, too, because you are so large. The rest of us take half as much. But you will need to remain strong for your journey."

"Journey?"

"Eat."

Before the wafer reaches his lips, Ronon knows what's in it. Half of Ronon's brain says to toss this poison away before it wraps around him so tightly he will never get it off. Then the other half croons to him, says, "Love me love me love me," and he takes it into his body and it feels so right and so good and so nourishing.

Zin says, "This is our food. We used to eat meat, but now we have these loaves." She points to the tan sponge. "And this is savory plants and sweet plants and bread," she tells him, indicating the green, blue and pink sponges.

"They got Happy in all of 'em?"

"He puts it in."

"He?"

"The Master. You really don't know anything at all, do you?"

"You gonna tell me?"

"In time."

With Happy on board, it's hard to get worked up about the food supply. Ronon eats all of the sponges. Bland and fibrous, their texture reminds him of the PowerBars he sometimes ate on the go in Atlantis. The wafers contain just enough Happy to keep him wanting it, but not enough to lay him down.

After eating, Zin leads Ronon to the larger house he'd noticed the night before. His legs are still a little wobbly, so she stays close by his side to steady him should he start to fall.

The house has a main room on its first level. Like the cabin, it is stuffy and smells of disuse. At the back is a fireplace with brackets and dusty cooking pots bolted to its walls. Rough tables and benches fill the area. To one side stands an easel with lines and words written on it, like the white drawing boards McKay uses in his lab.

A man sits by the empty fireplace, staring into its blackened depths. He doesn't look at Ronon but speaks.

"How is our needy visitor today?"

"He is still recovering," Zin answers, bringing Ronon to the man's side.

"Not unexpected." He reaches up to finger the bandage on Ronon's chest. The Satedan grabs his wrist and they look at each other. The man is thin and swarthy, like Zin, and wears similarly tattered clothing. His beady brown eyes pierce Ronon from beneath shaggy brown bangs.

Zin comes between them.

"Ronon, this is Cobel."

"Don't care."

"Cob, apologize!"

He looks at her with surprise.

She says, "You meant disrespect. Why should he carry for us if you can't be civil?"

For a moment, Zin and Cobel remind Ronon of Teyla and McKay.

"Mr. Dex, I apologize," Cobel says, relaxing into a friendly demeanor. He points to another aged chair near the cold fire hearth. "Please, sit by me. We have much to discuss."

TBC


	6. Part I, Chapter 6

**Part I, Chapter 6**

Light reflecting off the conference table jabs Sheppard in the eye. He squints, trying not to disturb Elizabeth and Caldwell while they discuss…whatever it is they're discussing.

Squinting aggravates John's headache, so he changes seats only to find that the light is no better there.

Things appear to be going equally poorly with Teyla and Rodney across the room. Considering their dour expressions, their headaches must be pounding along. Beckett has released them all from his care, sent them away with a few Imitrex. The two sit stiff-backed, leaning as far away from each other as possible without actually falling off their chairs. Every time one of them moves, the other rolls their eyes in annoyance.

"…feeling, John?"

He chooses to be honest. "Like crap. We were looking for a source of these pods, this Happy stuff." His head is about to explode. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. The glare..." He thinks the lights dim, and the band of pain loosens a little. Teyla and McKay sigh with relief as well.

Caldwell's voice rings loudly in the soothing darkness. "And the purpose of finding the pods?"

"Ow! Keep it down, will you?"

"Sorry, McKay. Continue, Colonel."

"The best pods grow on the Ruined Planet, so we went there to get some. Ronon was scouting ahead for us and got ambushed." He cuts his eyes sideways at Teyla, whose acrimony for McKay refocuses itself into a mask of grief for her teammate.

"He's dead, you mean?" Colonel Caldwell doesn't know Ronon at all, so the big Satedan's fate doesn't impress him much.

McKay says, "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe not."

"Okay. Then what happened?"

Sheppard continues. "We were pretty far away from Ronon when he went down. Then a gas came out of pipes on the roadway. Took us out."

"What sort of gas?"

McKay sits upright for the first time since the meeting began and turns to Caldwell. "Knock-out gas. Something toxic that gives you the worst hangover imaginable."

"The pipes stretched all the way from this farm?"

"Oh, gee, I forgot to notice!"

Elizabeth lays her hands on the table. "Rodney…"

"Just send me back there with a shovel and I'll find out."

"Rodney, quit it."

"Elizabeth, he's asking all the wrong questions."

"Colonel Sheppard?"

The sooner John gives his report, the sooner he can lie down in his quarters. "They hauled us back to the gate and sent us through. We woke up someplace else. Teyla, what was the name?"

"Dinda. We have been there before, but the Wraith culled it without mercy."

McKay begins packing up his laptop. "And then we got back here. The end. I'm leaving."

"Rodney?"

"Sorry, Elizabeth. My head's killing me. You've got the broad picture. They shot Ronon, we got back."

Sheppard can't even manage a "See ya" as McKay passes from the room

"Let me see the note," Caldwell says to Elizabeth. She hands him a scrap of paper on which, written in wavering scrawl, are the words, "You go. I'm staying. Don't come back."

The note. Sheppard's headache blossoms with new waves of agony just thinking about it. Caldwell reads the note, then tosses it onto the table.

"Sounds like he's alive and has made his intentions perfectly clear."

Teyla comes awake at Caldwell's statement. "Why would he wish to stay with those people? None of us knows his script, and, if he is still alive and did write this note, then they forced his hand."

"I wish I could believe that, Teyla."

She massages her eyebrows. John knows exactly how she's feeling.

"It is not a matter of belief, but one of common sense," she says, rubbing harder as if doing so will take the pain of everything away.

Caldwell leans back in his chair, relaxed and sure of himself. "He's an outsider. I'm certain he has his reasons for wanting to leave Atlantis."

"Now wait a minute!" Sheppard keeps his voice steady, ignoring the headache pounding in his temples. "The fact is, we don't know anything about Ronon's intentions." He looks at Teyla for support, but she's got her elbows on the table and her face cupped in her hands. Taking a breath, John continues. "You can draw all the conclusions you want from a scrap of paper, but that doesn't make them true. We saw him get shot and go down…" He pauses, remembering the ghastly event. "…but that doesn't mean that he's dead. Remember that because one day we may be having this same conversation about _you_. Now, if you'll excuse us…" and he rises and moves to Teyla, who has gone pale and looks ready to collapse.

"I do not understand why I am so ill," she says, when Sheppard has guided her out of the room and away from Caldwell's penetrating voice. She covers her eyes, shielding them from sunlight cascading through windows.

Sheppard stays close, leading Teyla around obstacles in their way.

"Well, that was enough gas to take me and McKay out, and no offense, but we're bigger than you are."

She shakes her head, which, if Sheppard's experience is any guide, has just made her feel worse.

"Look, I know you're strong. Just that you're, you know, little compared with the rest of us. And you took just as much of the gas as we did."

They stop for a moment, depleted by the gas that laid them out senseless and the memories of Ronon's fall. A few steps away, shut as tightly as the man himself, is the door to Ronon's quarters. Without thinking, Sheppard opens it and they both enter.

The Satedan brought almost nothing with him to Atlantis. His dimly lit quarters are bare, save for a couple of pieces of furniture, a few items of clothing, several short, thin knives in a bag near the bed and a small, wood carving of a four-legged beast with long teeth and swirls of curly hair.

Teyla slouches on the unmade bed looking at the floor.

"He is gone," she says bleakly.

"Don't talk like that," Sheppard responds, as he opens a dresser drawer. Inside are the leather epaulets and spiked gauntlets that Ronon wore for seven years while running from the Wraith. Lifting these from the drawer, Sheppard takes them to Teyla, and kneels beside her. "Would Ronon leave these behind?"

She runs her finger over the burnished hide, carefully touches the gloves' metal burrs.

"He would not." But her eyes redden as she turns away.

Sheppard studies the garments. Even after he stopped wearing them around the city, Ronon remained heavily guarded behind his reticence and his impenetrable stares. The man was all about protecting himself.

"I refuse to believe Ronon's dead," he says.

Teyla looks at him. "And the note?"

"I refuse to believe that, too." The leathers in his hands are a silent testament to his friend's fortitude, his will to survive. "He isn't dead and he didn't write any note."

He rises and gently replaces Ronon's belongings in the chest. He stares at them for a while, fixated on the puzzle that Ronon has left for them to solve.

"We'll get this all straightened out," he says to Teyla, to himself, to the Spartan living space that Ronon called home.

Teyla lies curled up on Ronon's bed, hugging the messy sheets and blanket close to her chest. Rather than wake her, Sheppard takes one last look around the room, then leaves Teyla to her peaceful dreams.

OoOoOoO

Two days have passed since McKay stormed out of the conference room. The interminable migraine persists but has diminished. He should be thinking about Ronon, sharing his melancholy with someone. Instead, his nimble fingers work with the headset, as if watching dreams will purify him.

Since Teyla refuses to let him view her playback, McKay has decided to sweeten the deal. Today he successfully pawned off his work on others. Luckily, no Wraith hive ships approach and, as far as he knows, no horrid death awaits him in some quiet corner of the city.

Sitting up in his bed with the headset, the playback shuttle, his laptop and a mild headache for company, Rodney completes the final adjustments to allow the machine to replay precise video, audio and physio-emotional dream experiences through the headset itself.

Simple playback is now total feedback.

Although he hasn't seen her for a while, Rodney is certain that Teyla is still furious with him for stealing her output. Her stunning visuals and erotic encounters were nothing compared with her incredible compassion. When he finished snooping inside Teyla's unconscious mind, he wanted her soul much, much more than her body.

She cares about everyone. She cares about _him_.

"Dr. McKay," she says into his radio. "Are you busy?"

He almost makes a snide remark, because he is usually always busy, but this is Teyla, who might show him her dreams if he's very nice to her.

"Not too busy for you," he responds, trying not to bite his tongue.

She enters his quarters a few moments later, physically stronger than last he saw her in the conference room, but obviously depleted by sorrow. For the first time since returning from the Ruined Planet, Rodney feels a punch to his gut, his own pain at losing Ronon, who on several occasions used his own body to shield Rodney from harm.

"I am sorry to bother you," Teyla says, standing uncertainly by McKay's door. "Dr. Beckett believes I am despondent about Ronon and suggested medication."

"Is it working?"

"I have not taken it."

Women confuse Rodney. "Okay," he says, impatiently waiting for her to get to the point.

"Give me the headset. I want to try again. Perhaps it will help."

He smiles. Teyla has great timing. "I have perfected it. You can have a whole-body experience now."

"Is that safe?"

"Of course it's safe. It's like an amusement park ride. Not that you know what they are, but…"

"Colonel Sheppard and I have discussed them."

"You have?"

"Yes. We started out talking about these 'clowns' he keeps mentioning…"

"Well, then, think of the headset as the motor on a Ferris wheel."

"It is my understanding that once the ride begins, you cannot get off until it is done."

Their eyes meet in challenge. Each has what the other wants.

Finally, McKay hands the headset to Teyla. "Try it. Use it tonight."

She takes it from him, but he holds on, pulling it back a little. "I've worked really hard to bring the Dream Machine's capabilities to this level."

"Thank you," she responds, tugging on the device.

McKay doesn't let go. "You can use it…"

Her expression sharpens. "Thank you. Again."

"…for a price."

TBC


	7. Part I, Chapter 7

**Part I, Chapter 7**

Zin places a plate of wafers on the table. She takes one for herself and hands another to Cobel, then turns to Ronon. "The Master gives us loaves with Happy in them. Otherwise, we would starve."

The Master. Zin and Cobel hate him down to the bones of his body.

"Thought he didn't like Happy."

Zin pulls back her lanky, dark hair, stretches her neck wearily. "So he said. Maybe in the beginning that was trueBut then he found a way to make people believe by using Happy and then taking it away. May the Wraith take _him_.**"**

"Believe?"

"In his god, his Divine One. People will believe anything if you say it often enough."

Cobel draws on the easel in the farm house, impatiently listening to this exchange.

"You tell him in pieces, Zin, like the priests." She takes offense and leaves the room. Her feet scrape along the gravel path outside. Cobel continues. "The priests hide how little they know about the Master's invisible deity: One bright sentence. 'He alone is glory.' Another one, 'Through the Master, the gentle Divine One will heal.' Another, 'We will fight for peace!' Each written by itself sounds rational. Put them together and you have nonsense.

"We do not know how the Master came to power. He was wealthy beyond imagining since childhood, so perhaps he bought his way in. Then he began to preach about his own made-up god, 'Divine One' this and 'Divine One' that.

"Then he stretched beyond words. 'Those who do not believe are our enemies,' he said. Do you understand this, Ronon? Do you understand how the armies are willing to fight for his cause?"

Ronon was a soldier once himself. "I do."

"He made the Happy War, poisoned the fields, and now controls the food supply, converting people with the very thing he set out to destroy."

"Sounds complicated."

"And it is, but why should he care?" he says, sarcastically. "All day in his big mansion, he doesn't have to kill the innocent or see the havoc he has wrought. So, the people of Maisica are growing their own food? Send out a fleet to put down this heinous rebellion! Make them eat the wafers until they can't live without them.

"Then one day the wafers stop coming. All who took them suffer, sometimes they die, hallucinating, screaming for solace. Withdrawal is difficult and strange. You become impressionable, easy to sway. Priests and missionaries come. They push the Divine One until visions and sickness persuade the ill that this god exists. The smart ones, the ones who refuse to believe, are killed, so that the rest may be given real food—their reward."

The lines Cob is drawing on the easel grow jagged with agitation, until he whirls around and points an accusing finger.

"How could you come here knowing nothing? We have endured the Master's folly for years! The Ancestor's ring connects us, world after world after world. Don't you care? Could you not have helped us?"

"We came looking for pods."

Cobel throws his marking pen across the room. "All the universe! Everyone! Captives to it!"

"It wasn't for us."

"For whom, then?"

Ronon crosses his arms. He wonders briefly whether the drunk in the tavern is still there, waiting for her Happy.

"Don't tell me," Cobel says, calming. "I will tell you about yourself. Someone gave them to you, did they not? A stranger, a trader? Pure pods, strong ones."

"One pod."

"Just one?" He furrows his brow. "You _are_ a needy soul to fall in love so easily." He waves his hand flippantly. "And now not a moment passes without wondering where you will get some. You wake up each day telling yourself 'Today I will not want it,' but a minute later, you change your mind."

His drawing complete, Cobel stands off to the side to let Ronon see a crudely drawn map of a large city. On the western edge are an "x" and the word "here."

Pointing to the "x," Cobel says, "This is where you are to go. There is no food along the way. No water. You will take the packaged meals you carried when you came here. In return for more Happy, you will carry the seeds to Sardu for us."

"Why?"

"I have already said. You will do what _we_ need in exchange for what _you_ need."

"I mean, why take 'em that far? What's so important over there?"

"Nothing. But a great treasure lies beyond. Gardens, secret places that escaped the Master's frenzy. We cannot continue to live on these." He takes up a wafer from the plate Zin left lying on the table. "They are our slave chains. We hear them rattle every time one passes our lips." Crushing the corrupt flatbread in his fist, Cobel watches the dusty remains fall through his fingers. "The seeds you carry will be grown and used instead of the filth the Master provides for us. From those plants, more seeds will be harvested, just like they were before the war. You will find our friends, or they will find you. We have no way to alert them, but learn this map, these streets." He points to the intersection of two straight avenues. "You must be clever to make this journey, but I think your reward is inspiration enough."

"How long to get there?"

Cobel smiles. "You're not strongly habituated, Ronon. I envy how little you need. A few days without Happy will not hurt you, although you might feel otherwise."

A short while later, Ronon returns to the cabin, where Zin has made ready a traveling pack for him. He takes out everything and lays aside the things he won't be needing.

She watches him. "No prayer box or candles?"

"Too heavy."

"How will you reach the gods?"

He says, "They'll find me."

OoOoOoO

Ronon walks the road to Sardu, fixated on his reward. Pods. Lots of them. Maybe enough to last a lifetime. But he stops himself from thinking that far ahead. For the moment, he wants only one and won't stop walking until he gets it.

Other travelers pass Ronon on the broken thoroughfare. They head back the way he came, towards Maisica, perhaps to use the stargate. At mid-day, all travelers kneel in prayer, holding between their hands golden medallions shaped like a spiking sun. To fit in, Ronon stands quietly by. The devout look washed up, as if they are recovering from a long sickness, perhaps malnutrition or addiction or both.

Once he hears distant gunfire and an echoing exhortation, "His soul rises to De'em!"

Stiff winds swirl down the avenue, throwing sand and bits of civilization into Ronon's face. In places, the road becomes a mere pile of aggregate and binder, impossible to walk upon without risking a fall. Here, he takes to the byways, through wrecked villages, passing empty homes and shuttered businesses.

Long before the sun sets, the need returns. Passing by blasted houses makes him think of Sateda and all that he lost there. The familiar chill creeps into his bones and he shakes under the incessant sun.

A furred creature follows him from the outskirts of a tiny settlement. Perhaps looking to attack or hoping for food scraps, it trots along fifty feet behind, panting and hanging its tongue. When Dex stops, it stops as well, sitting on its haunches, waiting.

"Go away."

It remains seated.

"Go away!" Ronon stamps his booted foot and pulls himself up menacingly.

Feral beasts don't scare him. This one is knee-high, whip-tail skinny, with gangly

legs and long hair, black in places, brown in others. A young animal, not without grace of form, its long snout attests to a keen sense of smell.

Despite Ronon's carrying on, the creature does not retreat.

On Sateda many people owned _tarpils_, round little animals of various breeds, with thick fur, large black eyes and calm dispositions. The publications from Earth that talk about cocaine and tobacco also sometimes have articles in them about "dogs." The nimble thing following Ronon more closely resembles a dog than a _tarpil_. The magazine articles referred to household pets as companions and friends, even family members.

The panting stops. The dog has vanished among some debris.

"Dog!" Ronon calls. He whistles, as he's seen people do in videos Sheppard has shown

him of life on Earth. Silence. Then, from the distance, the panting resumes. Dog

is still with him.

The late-afternoon sun glows orange and brown, barely penetrating airborne

dust that hangs there. Even on windless days, the dust moves skyward, as if trying

to escape this world and the damage that has been done to it.

Needing Happy and knowing that he won't get any for a while exhausts him. Choosing a secluded place behind a toppled tavern, Ronon builds a small fire with wood scavenged from decayed buildings and knocked-down trees. He eats something called Beef Ravioli, which is barely palatable, and comes close to the fire to warm his trembling body.

Dog smells the food. It sits where the fire gives off its least light. With a flick of his wrist, Ronon tosses some Bread Snack at Dog, who eats it voraciously.

"No more."

His tail high, Dog walks off into the darkness.

The fire burns for a short while longer, long enough for Dex unroll his sleeping

sack. Stars litter the moonless sky. Sateda and Atlantis and all of the other worlds he has visited may be visible. One star looks like every other, though. Each place holds the same story: Comfort and rest, then brutal suffering, misery and shame.

Once the flames die, Ronon lies awake, wanting and wanting and not having. In the morning he collects his things and travels on. Dog follows.

OoOoOoO

Sardu is hardly the shining fortress that Ronon expected. What wasn't destroyed outright by bombs has been picked over by survivors. Torn-open buildings reveal parts of rooms. Ragged furniture, shredded clothing lies in piles in the streets. Here and there, photographs of happier times blow about. Anonymous faces smile, ignorant of the suffering to come.

His need grows hourly. Four days of pure food and water. Four days without pods to bring him to grace.

No one greets Ronon at city's edge. Perhaps Cobel's map was drawn from memories of Sardu when it stood, for now the avenues are simply extensions of the debris on either side.

Climbing to the crest of a fallen building, Ronon sees only more mountains of detritus and one of the ubiquitous banners: "Devotion is its own reward!"

"It is you, big man!" The spice merchant stands behind him, at the base of the pile, hands on hips, smiling broadly.

Ronon races down to him, willing to offer whatever is necessary to get the man to open the box where the pods are kept. This must show plainly on his face, for the spice merchant backs away as Ronon struggles to reach him.

"Stay back, now!"

"Cobel sent me. I've brought…" He drags his pack off his shoulder and opens the flap.

"You are a load to carry. If you're lucky, we can do it without dropping you too many times!"

"What? No, look!" The packets are stuffed down at the bottom, under leftover food and water cans.

"Sit down first so you don't hurt yourself."

When Ronon remains standing, pawing through the pack, the spice merchant sighs and shakes his head.

"Fine," he says. "We'll do it your way. But don't blame me for what happens."

Sliding out from behind the myriad hiding places the destroyed buildings offer, men and women in beige uniforms appear, armed with the weapons that shoot needles. At a hand signal from the spice merchant, a few reach into their pockets and fling delicate tubes at Ronon and then run away. The tubes break with a tiny tinkling sound and the air clouds with a mist, a sweet/sour miasma that reaches Ronon in moments.

Blaster up and ready, Ronon tries to see through the mist, through the clouds forming in his brain.

The spice merchant's booming voice rings out. "Don't fire!" For a moment Ronon thinks the command is directed at him. "We need him alive."

These are not Zin's friends. The jolly spice merchant isn't merely being cautious by subduing him. Bit by bit, Ronon realizes his mistake, one of so many he's made lately.

Fumbling, losing consciousness, Ronon drops his blaster.

Figures in face masks approach. "What will we do with him?" someone asks.

Ronon's knees buckle and give way. His head strikes rubble when he falls back.

"The Master will decide," the spice merchant replies, his resonant voice unimpeded by his own filtering device.

Choking on the fumes, Ronon tries to stay awake, but the faces in front of his eyes are his father's and his brother's and Teyla's and Zin's. He realizes that he's dreaming even before the dream begins.

TBC


	8. Part I, Chapter 8

_A.N. Again, eternal gratitude goes to my magnificent beta, Aslowhite, for her help and support. _

**Part I, Chapter 8**

_Teyla watches Ronon fall. In the dream, she doesn't see yellow mist blowing out of the strange pipes lining their route on the Ruined Planet. In the dream, the mist isn't there at all. And John doesn't utter 'Move…' as he did when it really happened. Rodney's legs don't give way and he doesn't fall against her as Teyla herself loses consciousness. _

_Instead, they make it to the farm. Teyla shoots faceless aggressors, then, with the strength of ten warriors twice her size, she carries Ronon to safety. Her teammate feels feather light on her untiring shoulders as she climbs the wreckage of Maisica and brings him home to Atlantis. She does it. Teyla the Invincible._

"Excuse me, Dr. McKay."

"What?"

"You're in my way."

Rodney stands aside, noting that he has reached the jumper bay. People busy themselves around him; Zelenka's unmistakable voice drifts from a ship parked in the back of the room.

Teyla's output from the previous night buoys his spirits, although he hardly expected her visions to suddenly wash over him unbidden like that. He holds a coffee mug, the untouched contents of which are now cold.

Zelenka emerges from a jumper, datapad in hand.

"Oh, there you are!" he says. "I've been waiting for almost a half-hour."

Admit nothing. Make counterallegations. "You could have said it was urgent."

_Teyla watches Ronon fall…_

"…recalibrated to receive subspace transmissions?"

"Yes," McKay replies, jumping into reality.

Radek peers at him questioningly. "Yes what?"

"Yes what what?"

"I asked whether you wanted only this jumper or the entire fleet recalibrated."

"Of course you did. I…" He waves his hand dismissively. "Anyway, recalibrate this one and test it while the jumper's spaceborne."

Rodney turns to leave, but Radek stops him. "Where are you going?"

It all comes back. They're supposed to meet about other things.

_Teyla descends a flight of stairs and stops on the landing…_

This is last night's output, as well. Teyla came to his quarters early and gave him the disk, which Rodney watched several times.

_From her vantage point on the landing, Teyla looks into someone's bedroom…_

A shake to his shoulder.

"What!"

"Are you listening to me?" Zelenka says, more irritated than concerned. Dr. DePetrio has joined their conversation at some point, but McKay missed that moment.

It is possible that Radek and DePetrio are simply part of Teyla's dream. Unlikely, though, since Teyla never embraces science this way.

"Of course I'm listening," he says, raising his chin defensively.

Their discussion continues. Rodney concentrates to suppress images that threaten to take over…_Teyla peers into someone's bedroom_…focuses on puddle jumpers and on Zelenka's talking points.

His watch beeps, reminding him of an afternoon meeting in the conference room. Is it that late already? The headset waits in his quarters, ready to feed him playback playback playback. But he's not wearing the headset, yet he's dreaming still.

_Teyla watches Ronon fall… She carries him to Atlantis… Waning sunlight slips across the bedroom floor as she leaves the landing and stands at the open door…_

"…rescue or recovery?" Caldwell asks.

Clarity returns in the middle of a tense discussion. Elizabeth has called another meeting concerning the Ruined Planet.

When no one responds, Caldwell continues. "At any rate, the primary mission goal was not achieved. And, if Ronon is still alive, we have a rogue out there possibly compromising base security."

Sheppard, his hands folded tightly together, sits beside Rodney. "Ronon would _never_ reveal our location," he says, his voice steady and sure.

_Wraith and humans together beside the campfire…a snap behind him…Blood runs into his eyes as he clutches Teyla's wrist… "Where the hell's Ronon!" "I got lost."_

Focus, fo—

_Teyla views her beloved village from a high vantage point. A low moon, huge and orange, throws light onto the valley below…_

"…retrofitted the masks' filters to prevent the gas from penetrating…"

Carson's joined the meeting. Damn it! When did that happen?

Rodney's been watching hours and hours of output—Teyla's and his own—since he perfected the Dream Machine. Output is now reality. Sucked into his teammate's playback, Rodney _is_ Teyla and her dreams are now his. He can't get away from them anymore.

Her eyes open and staring, Teyla sits across the way. Caldwell's chair squeaks a little, and she comes to, blinking. McKay wants to ask her, What were you dreaming about just then? except these aren't dreams--they're movies, TV shows, reruns on their own, secret Channel Z.

_A low moon, huge and orange, throws light onto a valley below. Rough wooden huts stand in clusters near a winding stream, black and snakelike in the distance._

Biting the inside of his lip, Rodney tries very hard to stay in the moment. He shouldn't be falling into dreams like this. The headset is in his quarters, far away where playback can't possibly reach him.

"So we agree. You'll approach the farm, acquire the pods and attempt to rescue or retrieve Ronon." Elizabeth's clarifying. Rodney doesn't know how much debate has occurred, only that the results of it seem logical enough.

He notices Sheppard's eyes on him, intent. "Gear-up is at 0800." The Colonel holds a filtering mask that Carson's given him. "Nothing like a little field testing."

Because he's not certain exactly what this means, McKay takes the mask and examines it. "We're Guinea pigs?"

"You heard the Doc. Its filter's designed to prevent transmission of everything from dust to radon daughters."

"Well, of course. I designed it!"

"Yeah. Doc said. Good for you, Rodney. And tomorrow we might get to see how well it works on stinky yellow gasses."

Oh. So that's why Carson came to the meeting. Teyla slips by but doesn't say anything. McKay feels Channel Z reloading, getting ready to transmit…

_Rodney stands knee-deep in the winding stream, wading naked into unknown waters. Small fish brush against his legs but they don't frighten him._

Handing back the mask, McKay looks past Sheppard in search of Teyla. She disappears at a distant bend in the hallway. How will he find her now?

"You all right?" Sheppard turns to follow McKay's eyes.

Focus, focus. "Fine. A little tired. Up late last night." Rodney passes Sheppard, not really caring whether his answer was sufficient.

Hallways lead him where they want him to go.

_Looking down at himself as he wades in the stream, Rodney sees high, firm breasts, and a simple mound of hair where his penis used to be. He is Teyla in form and in flesh, bathing under moonlight._

Someone's loaded up a lunch tray and placed it on a table in front of him in the mess hall. Seated, with a fork in his left hand, a knife in his right and a piece of partially chewed chicken in his mouth, Rodney's Z'd through a walk to the mess, through half his meal.

He shudders, overwhelmed at having missed time, blacked out into playback.

_Teyla's hair feels smooth and thick as he rubs washing liquid along the strands. _

Laughter from the next table brings McKay back. He knows he's finished eating because the tray is empty, save for some liquid where the green beans were.

The day is sliding away from him.

_A bedroom door stands open. Teyla moves from the landing to get a better look at the room. A sleeping form rustles the sheets, then lies still…_

"McKay, respond."

Radio. He taps his ear. "McKay."

"We got a scheduling conflict with another team. Report time's moved up to 0730."

"Right."

The next day's mission requires him to prepare and worry and delegate work. If Ronon is still alive, he may not want to come back. Maybe Sheppard will talk him into returning. Maybe Sheppard will have to shoot him.

Present-day thoughts occupy Rodney's mind for a while as he packs in his quarters. He can't hold onto them, though, as walls and floors and furniture slip away…

_Diesel fumes roll up into the air as he boards a train bound for Montreal…_

Strange. Neither he nor Teyla has dreamed of any train trips so far.

The headset lies where he left it, right next to his bed. Teyla's already retrieved the disk he watched earlier that day. Their deal suits them perfectly: She gets to watch her dreams, he gets to watch them, as well. Sometimes he goes back over his own material, but after dozens of viewings it's stale and boring in comparison to the bright, shiny new stuff Teyla's providing.

_The train jerks as it begins rolling out of the station…_

_He enters a food shop and sees shelves filled with nothing but bottles of Wraith enzyme…Aiden Ford peers at him from behind the counter. "Take all you want," he says…_

_Teyla stands on the landing looking into someone's bedroom._

_A dart scoops up Rodney and he comes to in the infirmary. Cadman's walking around, helping Carson. She's not in his head this time…_

_Tall-grass fields race by as the train passes through them. This isn't the way to Montreal. This isn't Canada, at all…  
_

Oh. He's all packed. Everything is stacked neatly by the door.

The day lasted only a few minutes.

_She bathes in the stream. He bathes in the stream. Small fish brush against her legs. Rodney isn't frightened by them. _

_Up beyond the treeline, a Ferris wheel goes around and around, lights along the wheel spokes and crossmembers defining its unique shape. The Athosian village is now a little, podunk town, but the train doesn't stop there._

McKay blinks and rubs his eyes to clear his vision. The headset lies next to his bed, ticking, ticking, like a time bomb, like a countdown to certain madness. It's not hooked up to anything, but when Rodney touches the device with fingertips moist with sweat, images seem to pour out of it, up his arms, into his system, and hit his brain like an opiate. He stumbles to the lab and, all the way there, the headset feeds him playback…_Griffin holds up his glass in a toast… "He paid for it." Slamming the cockpit door in Rodney's face. Slamming and slamming…The Wraith's teeth glisten in the firelight as he takes the bit of wafer into his mouth…_

Rodney slams the door to the storage cabinet and sets the lock.

"What the hell was all that?" he asks the empty lab, as if the Dream Machine's effects will cease simply because he's decided that they will.

Focus, focus. Back to his quarters, to his bed.

_Someone lies on the bed, just visible from the stairway landing. Teyla moves closer to see who it is._

"Stop it!" he tells himself. Now he's undressed and his teeth feel brushed.

_The train scuttles across desert, over bridges, then around sharp corners like a roller coaster. If the conductor comes by, Rodney will insist he be let off at the next stop. He definitely wants to get off there._

He wants to get off anywhere. He wants to get off.

TBC


	9. Part I, Chapter 9

**Part I, Chapter 9**

Someone must have fractured his skull, for Ronon's headache is so unbelievably painful, the smallest movement shoots bolts of agony all the way to the ends of his dreads.

A half-dozen uniformed men carry Ronon through Sardu's wretched streets. As the spice merchant predicted, they drop him many times, which sends his blistering headache up into a stratosphere of pain so intense he wishes were still unconscious.

He is laid down for a few moments while the people transporting him rest.

The sky above looks kind and gentle, impossibly blue with whipped-cream clouds. Ronon remembers whipped cream from Atlantis, first trying it when Sheppard handed him a spoonful while they ate in the mess.

Sheppard. Atlantis.

"Behold the Master's splendid home!" The Master's palatial house, white, with a deep front portico, stands four stories high and spans an entire city block. Armed security patrols walk in singles and twos along a wide sidewalk just outside a tall perimeter fence.

The spice merchant's fleshy face hangs above Ronon's. "Can you walk, big man?"

"Can't," he replies.

Staggering under his weight, the men bearing him pull Ronon to his feet and drag him into the large residence and down a long, wide hallway. They pass carved white-rock walls, colorful stone columns, and tread on rugs so thick their feet make hushing sounds upon them.

A door, big and golden with a knob shaped like a palm frond. The door opens. Ronon is hustled inside and seated in a large, upholstered chair. He drops his aching head into his hands.

"Drink."

Someone tips his chin up and places a small vial to his lips. Happy? he wonders. The tasteless liquid hits his stomach and, within seconds, the headache is gone, leaving a void where his drug needs to be.

"Good. Now we can talk."

The uniformed men stand about, holding the awful needle weapons, the sight of which makes Ronon's chest ache.

A man wearing a beige suit sits a few feet away, in a chair similar to Ronon's. Stars and badges cover the breast of his overcoat, but his thin wrists and doughy hands betray the fact that, despite his military regalia, he doesn't know battle.

Ronon rubs his face, clearing the last blurring traces of mist from his vision. "Who the hell are you?" he asks.

"You do not know of me?" The beige man gathers himself up. "I am Master D'lin. You may call me the Master."

Ronon blinks at him.

"Surely you know of my good works."

"You wrecked everything. I know that."

The man in beige stands. He is average looking, neither especially tall nor well proportioned, with pale eyes and wispy brown hair sprayed in place with lacquer. The medals and badges on his chest jingle when he moves.

"Where you see ruin, I see progress, real, steady progress," he says, projecting his voice in the small room, as if a great crowd were listening.

"Progress in what?"

"Progress towards freedom, of course," the man replies. He uses studied hand gestures to emphasize his words. "But it will take time. People have to be patient. We will give them the drug because that is what they want. When the drug is taken away, they will accept the Divine One because that is what I want."

Ronon sometimes has problems understanding McKay's science or Sheppard's strategy, but this makes no sense at all. "You could preach your Divine One from the start."

"They would not appreciate Him and the freedom He offers. To be free of something, you first have to be enslaved by it."

A hearth crackles nearby. Instead of logs, broken hardwood furniture burns slowly in the brick enclosure. Their cozy salon, with its fine, paneled walls and incandescent lighting, seems miles away from Sardu's crumbling edifices just outside the gate.

"May I speak to the prisoner, Master?" The spice merchant stands at the elaborate door. He is dressed in a beige suit like the Master's, but with fewer clinking medals on his barrel chest.

"If you must."

After a stiff bow at the waist, the merchant comes to the Master's side. He shoves his hands in his pockets, looking pleased with himself.

"So you've finally come to pay me?" He chuckles, leaving the Master out of their private joke. "I am the Second, the Master's chief aide."

"Not a spice merchant?" Ronon asks.

The Second shrugs. "We need volunteers, so sometimes I go to other worlds to find them. And here you are! Too bad you fell in with seed smugglers, first."

The Master points to Ronon. "This is the dangerous rebel of whom you spoke? He is no smarter than a rock!"

"He carried seeds, Sir. Proof of his involvement if ever it existed."

"Seeds? Where did he get them?"

The Second turns to Ronon. "Well?"

Dex rubs his forehead, inwardly chastising himself for thinking the spice merchant was friend instead of foe. Another mistake added to his growing list of errors.

"My business," he says.

"Seeds are everyone's business," the Master replies. "Simple things that mean everything to us."

"He won't say outright where he got them, Sir."

"I suppose not," the Master sighs. He comes close to Ronon as the soldiers step forward protectively. "I am a kindly man," he says. "I do not believe in torture, but I do believe in persuasion. You will tell us where you came from, where you got the seeds, but I won't have to beat you or break your bones to get you to tell me."

The Master is just close enough. Dex could reach up and snap his neck if not for the chilling sensation of a gun barrel lightly touching the back of his head.

"The Master is kind," says the Second. "The dead in our land were like you. They wanted what they could not have, their gods and their Happy and their silly lives devoted to others and not to the Master and the Divine One."

He removes a pod from his pocket, holds it up as he did at the market that fateful day so long ago. Ronon tries to stop wanting it.

"What will you do for it?" the Second asks.

"Nothing."

"Everything. I see it in your eyes."

Ronon whips around, clutches the weapon barrel pointed at his head and pushes the guard holding it into the fireplace. Other men at arms step forward as their comrade screams. For a few moments, Ronon is able to defend himself until a gunstock rams the side of his head, bringing him down.

He comes back to the smell of burned hair. The man he pushed into the fire has been removed and all is serene, again. The Master has left, but his Second kneels down beside Ronon.

"I ought to have known. Big man like you. Self possessed." He holds the pod inches from Ronon's face. "Is it Mother? Are you a child, dependant on it for your survival?"

"No!" Ronon clenches his teeth as men healthier and far stronger than he hold him down.

"Then I haven't done my job very well." He shakes his head and rises. "Not a big concern. Happy will soon mean more to you than loyalty, friendship, even sex. But when you don't have it anymore, you will tell me where you got the seeds just for one pod, one wafer. Then you will find comfort in the Divine One and thank us in your prayers each day."

Ronon is brought to his feet. Barely lucid, he winces upon touching the swollen lump where the guard struck him.

With a smile that shows his even, white teeth, the Second steps back and says to the guards, "Show him how much we love him."

The security detail takes Ronon away from the Second to another room, a medical clinic with disinfectant smells and shining metal objects. To one side stand chambers, windowed tubes, each large enough to hold a single person. One chamber opens, its hinged door swinging away like a coffin lid.

All thoughts of needles and mists and Happy evaporate. Ronon Dex will not go into a tube.

Adrenaline surges through his system, making him whole again, making him believe in himself. For a few moments, he has the upper hand, batting away soldiers as though they were tiny insects. His eyes are sharper, his body moves faster than it has in all of these weeks since he started taking Happy and lying on his bed thinking about the past.

"Bring it! Bring it!" someone shouts, grasping Ronon's hair like a collar.

A vile is crushed against his face and the mist comes. Ronon's legs give way like jelly as hands now much stronger than his own push him into a chamber, strap his limbs and close him in.

Ronon can't stomach small spaces. "Stopstop," he mutters, as his vision fades. People watch him from outside the chamber's windows. He can't breathe in this tiny tube. A small rivulet of blood tracks down from cheek to jaw from where the glass vile cut him.

The tube fills with warm, aromatic steam that lulls him to sleep as the taste of Happy reaches down his throat. Eyes closed, Ronon sees the cloud-filled sky again, then an endless ocean and the heavens meeting at a distant, unreachable horizon.

OoOoOoO

_McKay carries a wrapped gift to John's quarters. He can't wait for the Colonel to see it. A big party is going on in John's rooms, with loud music and tables piled high with food. _

"_Happy birthday," Rodney says, perturbed that he wasn't invited._

"_Thanks," John answers, taking the present from him._

"_I made it myself." Rodney expects the entire crowd to acknowledge his creation, but they carry on without even looking his way._

_The wrapping paper turns into sticky webs as Sheppard pulls on it. He shakes his hand to get the stuff loose and ends up wiping it off with a towel. Blood saturates the towel where his hands touch it._

_It's a fully charged ZPM, glowing warmly with limitless power. _

"_Nice." Sheppard says, without enthusiasm. He places the ZPM as a centerpiece on one of the food tables, where it is ignored like a bowl of strange-looking dip._

Sgt. Ruiz finds him shivering in the chilly night. His touch brings Rodney back to himself.

McKay stands on a balcony a long way from his quarters. The place confuses him, even though he has been there many times in the past. His thoughts come in segments, chopped-up pieces of Teyla's dreams and his own, running in a loop that blocks out everything else.

"Dr. McKay, are you feeling all right?"

"Huh? Oh. Yes, I'm fine. Just…" He notices the pale, morning sky. "…getting some fresh air."

"In your bathrobe?"

McKay doesn't remember Ruiz seeing him back to his quarters.

_The train bound for Montreal gets stuck in a tunnel for a while. Teyla and Ronon and Sheppard are in the last car. When the train starts up again, that car has come loose and sits on the tracks far behind… _

"Rodney?" Daylight streams through tall windows. He's in the hallway just outside his room. Teyla stands before him and he has to touch her hair to make sure she's real. Even then, he's not sure. He feels for the headset but it isn't there.

"I'm awake?" he says.

"Yes, but…look at you."

He sees his pale legs and boxers and a t-shirt. People stare at him as they walk by. "I'm dreaming this."

"No, you are really here."

"I can't know that. Maybe I'm…Teyla, are you really here?"

"Of course."

She takes his hand. Her fingers feel suitably warm, her palms callused from hitting Sheppard and Ronon with sticks in the gym.

"Do I feel real?" she asks.

"Yes." _Teyla watches Ronon fall, and McKay is filled with her devastation… _He says, "It was terrible," and brings her close as tears fill his eyes.

"Rodney, what are you talking about?"

He shakes his head, fighting his emotions. Her emotions. "We have to stop using the Dream Machine."

_The hallway slides away…McKay is Teyla standing on a stairway landing, looking into someone's room…_

"I thought you said it was safe."

"It is. Or, it was."

_Another blink. A field. It's his own playback, now, the moment a dart scooped him up…_

The stress of explaining makes him dizzy. He rubs his forehead roughly.

"Headache?"

_McKay's on a train bound for a conference in Montreal…_

"I'm fine." He looks at her as levelly as possible. "We're using the headset in ways that might have been safe for Ancients but aren't for us."

_The train is going in the wrong direction…_

Teyla leads him to a seat.

_He arrives in Atlantis, instead…_

"It's putting things into my brain. Like right now. My dreams…yours."

_An old-fashioned train station on the Mainland…_

"The ones I allowed you to see?" Teyla asks.

"I can't turn them off!"

_Athosians everywhere and Teyla knows each one by name, even the little, scrunched-faced babies…_

_The tree splinters. Rodney can't see through the blood in his eyes…_

_Vials and vials of Wraith enzyme, red like cranberries, red like blood…_

"I trusted you, Rodney, but now I hardly know when I am dreaming and when I am not."

_Then the train rolls through…Alberta? Quebec? _

He pops out of Z and into what may or may not be reality. "It's happening to you, too?"

_Where are the signs? Rodney has no idea where he is._

"Even now I see…" and her voice trails off and her eyes go flat as she watches Channel Z in her head.

_A faceless conductor approaches. "I'm sorry, sir. Please return to your seat."…_

Rodney has to speak very quickly before the next wave hits him. "I couldn't stop using it, I couldn't stop watching, my dreams, yours. Now they…"

_Rodney steps off the train, at last. Into a village, a hive ship, a forest, a field, into an Air Force base in Colorado…_

"…will not stop," Teyla finishes for him.

_He's supposed to be in Montreal for a conference, a very, very important conference. Lives depend on his presence._

"I'm sick. Teyla…" He reaches for her even though he can't really see or hear or taste or smell or touch and know that they are real sensations.

"Sick?"

The word pulls him from the visions. McKay's bare feet feel chilly. He looks down. Indeed. He wears nothing but underwear and holds Teyla's hands so tightly her fingers have gone purple.

"Sick. Like now. It's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between…" _Ronon goes down_…. "what's real"…_vials and vials of Wraith enzyme_… "and what's not."

"You must see Dr. Beckett."

_He is Teyla on the landing, looking into someone's bedroom…_

Teyla pulls him along the passageway.

_The train stops in front of Cheyenne Mountain…_

"Rodney?"

McKay knows Carson's there because of the white lab coat and the accent.

_Down the elevator to subfloor 23..._

Then he's sitting on a bed.

_The gateroom doors open and Rodney steps through to find himself back on the landing, looking into someone's bedroom…_

"What's bothering you, Rodney?"

Teyla speaks from a distance. "I found him outside his room. He is disoriented."

_He wakes up. But, no. He's just dreaming that he's dreaming and waking up._

"What if I never wake up? Teyla!"

"I am still here, Rodney."

"Tell Carson!"

She won't know how to explain about the Dream Machine. No one will. Only Rodney knows the settings for upload and output and feedback and all of the other data transfer protocols.

He reaches blindly, trying to take hold of anyone…_the train pulls up at another station. The Conductor will not let him off_...because all he sees is the scenery rolling around in his mind…_ the train chugs up a mountain, past pine trees and rocky hillsides…_

They put him in hospital scrubs and all of the movement confuses him more…_The Conductor will not let him get off…_Rodney's supposed to return to the Ruined Planet to find Ronon and get pods. If he can't leave the train, someone will have to go in his place…

"I have to be on time."

Carson lifts the back of McKay's scrubs to check lung sounds. "Where?" he asks.

…_to face the needle weapons and the pernicious yellow mist. _

_Ronon, feather-light on Teyla's shoulders…_

"Don't send Radek there!" McKay shouts, agitated, weeping.

"Relax, Rodney, Radek's not going anywhere." Carson mutters something to an aide, who hands him a syringe.

"Radek is smaller than I am. Less lung capacity…"

"He's staying right here."

_Carrying Ronon all the way back to Maisica, through the gate home…Teyla the Invincible_.

Whatever Carson gave him starts to work and they lay him back…_Teyla reaches the landing and sees that Rodney is the mysterious form asleep in the bedroom_…He's going to sleep for a long time and won't be ready for the next mission…_She comes to his bedside_…_Another station swings by. The train picks up speed…_

"_What if the train never stops?" he asks, as Teyla comes near._

"_I will go with you," she says, stroking his cheek with the back of her hand. _

Rodney opens his eyes a crack to see Teyla and Elizabeth and Carson in a tight little group, speaking softly so he hears only a portion of what they're saying.

"He did this to himself?" Elizabeth asks, her voice full of that cutting-edge diction she uses when extremely annoyed.

_Vials and vials of Wraith enzyme…_

Teyla says, "I have experienced it, too."

_McKay hands one vial after the other to her, and Teyla drinks them all…_

Then the medicated silence comes, the darkness of no dreams, no sensation, of utter, blessed nothing.

TBC


	10. Part I, Chapter 10

_A.N. Now that we've passed the Solstice, I can already tell that the days are getting longer. Not really. But it sounds so positive to say that. Tomorrow is Christmas, so best wishes to all who celebrate it. For those who don't, I do hope you at least get to sleep late and stay in where it's warm._

**Part I, Chapter 10**

_They're under siege in Valosia, a reeking spit of land that juts out into the Pafuri Sea on P4C-906. Unwelcoming inhabitants use catapults to hurl explosives at them, and the ground shakes with every detonation. Rodney can't run anymore. His legs give out._ I'm going to die_, he thinks, then gasps when a man covers him with his body. It's Ronon, blanketing him, protecting him, shooting at their pursuers…_

Rodney comes out of this dream quickly. For the first time since Ronon fell on the Ruined Planet, McKay experiences the Satedan's absence honestly without the Dream Machine's intervention. Carson notices he's awake and comes to his bedside. Rodney pours himself a cup of water from the plastic pitcher nearby and messes with the bendy straw.

"Your scans are clean," the doctor says.

"Good," Rodney responds, remembering Valosia and Neridar and all the other places where Ronon put himself between McKay and doom.

"Do you know where you are?"

"The Dream Machine's side effects are gone, if that's what you mean."

"You came out of the sedative yesterday awake enough. How are you now? No train rides to nowhere or missing time?"

Rodney feels his face redden. He moves the bendy straw around, thinking how it resembles the pipes along the Ruined Planet's dusty road. Rodney watches Ronon fall, but it's his memory this time, not Teyla's, and these are his feelings welling up within him.

"I'm okay, now," he says. Carson waits beside him. "I said I'm fine."

Carson completes another vitals check, distracting Rodney from thinking too much. After the doctor moves to another patient, Rodney tries tuning into Channel Z, just to see if he can. Nothing. He remembers dreams without leaving reality, just as he did before ever laying his hands on the headset.

When Teyla enters the infirmary, she looks so ragged and sad that McKay almost feels like weeping himself. She comes and sits right on the bed, next to McKay's feet.

Before she opens her mouth to speak, he says, "I'm sorry. For everything."

Elizabeth has confiscated all of the disks, his laptop and the headset. All of those dream experiences are gone forever. Only Teyla herself remains.

"It had its rewards," she says, and he wonders whether her wan appearance has as much to do with losing him as it does losing playback.

She misses Ronon. Maybe she misses Rodney, too. Just a little.

They sit quietly for a minute, and Rodney's surprised at how comfortable their silence feels. Teyla's calming presence skitters away when Sheppard joins them. He leans lazily against the wall near Rodney's bed, betraying his feelings with a dark, accusatory gaze.

"McKay. You're an idiot."

"I'm sorry. I got…carried away."

"You took Teyla with you." He looks at her as if daring her to disagree.

McKay's embarrassment deepens. "What did you tell them, Teyla?"

"Everything," she responds. Straightening, she turns to John. "I went willingly."

The Colonel holds up his hand. "And where are you now?"

She smiles uncertainly. "Here, of course."

"McKay?"

"Better. Present."

"Good, because I don't want either of you flaking out when we go to pick up Ronon."

"You waited? I felt sure you were taking Zelenka instead."

"Now why would I do that?"

McKay can't think up a good reason. At the time, with visions piled one atop the other, it made perfect sense. The dreams have evaporated and left behind a sense of madness without the madness itself.

Sheppard shifts against the wall. "So, you guys didn't think that using this dream thing would affect your performance on missions?"

"It only got weird those last two days and we were here the entire time. I would have mentioned it otherwise. No, honestly, if I'd been able to, I would have said something."

Teyla looks down at McKay's feet, which move under the blanket covering them.

"Teyla," Sheppard says, pinning her with a glacial stare. "Did you think that being pissed off at McKay didn't distract you?"

"That was my fault," McKay says, recalling their exhausting dispute, how it boiled up into a frenzy once she wanted the device for comfort and he wanted it for thrills.

"It will not happen again," Teyla says, raising her head, meeting Sheppard's eyes with absolute certainty.

The Colonel relaxes his tightly folded arms.

"Elizabeth and Caldwell considered sending a Marine contingent yesterday, but I persuaded them that it's better to catch flies with honey and all that. Ronon has to cooperate with us, otherwise Caldwell's going to Plan B."

"Plan B?" Teyla sits up, alert.

"It's not my idea, Teyla. I'm sure once we find Ronon, he'll have a perfectly reasonable explanation. But Caldwell's got a point—Ronon's not much of a talker, but he does know our location. If he doesn't return by choice…"

"What do you intend to do with him once he has returned?"

"Well, _I_ intend to keep him on our team, if he's willing."

"And Colonel Caldwell? What are _his_ plans for Ronon?"

Sheppard looks away, as if ashamed to admit it. "Depends on why he took off in the first place."

McKay imagines Ronon sulking in the brig for years, caged up for no crime except knowing too much. For an instant, part of him hopes that Ronon didn't survive the attack at the settlement. "The note. He said not to come back."

"Uh-huh. You believe that?"

"Maybe he just wanted to go off and kill Wraith on his own again."

"Then he should have said something."

McKay gets the dream sensation, the blanket of assurance he felt when Ronon was close by. "He probably knew you'd say no."

"Don't worry, McKay," Sheppard says, indicating that their conversation is almost over. "I'm sure that this is all just a big misunderstanding and Ronon'll be pleased as punch to be back in Atlantis."

"Whether he wants to or not?"

"Rest up," Sheppard answers and leaves.

Teyla stays with Rodney a few minutes longer. She sighs deeply. "I am not surprised Colonel Caldwell has no faith in Ronon keeping Atlantis a secret," she says bitterly.

"Maybe we won't find him. He doesn't have a subcutaneous transmitter."

"It is more likely, Rodney, that Ronon will find us first."

OoOoOoO

The tube works with quiet efficiency. Ronon drifts in a languid haze, feeling Happy course through him like new blood. Captured in bliss, nothing matters except more Happy and more and more.

He is let out after a few days and sent to rest in a room on the top floor of the Master's expansive house.

Scented flowers add fragrant depth to his visions of life in Sateda. Wraith charges lift homes and the people in them into fiery blossoms made awesome and festive in Happy's wake. When memories of running come to him, that terrible time seems like an exciting adventure story, as if he were a lone explorer: He lived out in nature, took care of himself, and killed many, many Wraith. What more could a man want in his life?

Atlantis appears as a rest stop on his journey, on his mission to find the last of his people and dwell with them again.

Then the Happy melts away in his system. Ronon rises and paces the room, snarling at the lush draperies and soft furnishings. He takes paintings off the walls, snaps the frames as if they were arms and legs.

A food tray is sent through a slot at the base of the door. It contains meats and vegetables, but no pods or wafers impregnated with Happy. Flinging the tray against the wall, Ronon watches the bits of food and gravy slide onto the floor.

The windows about the room are made of a thick, clear resin. Pounding on the panes only makes them rattle in their metal casings. Pushing, shoving and kicking don't break them, either. The obstinate windowpanes drive him half-mad but give him something to act upon to work off the sensation of insects burrowing under his skin.

Night comes with no food tray, no visitors, only his craving to keep him company. The moon casts cold shadows in the darkened room as exhaustion finally takes him down.

Another day and a night pass, each moment dragging into eternity. Every nerve pulses as if set afire and he can't think of anything but the pain and the hollow place that Happy has carved into him. Even air passing down his windpipe seems to scrape the tissues from his throat.

"You can't…I can't…" he mutters, unable to think of anything to soothe himself. "I can't…I can't…I can't…"

This is worse than all the sickness he has ever had mixed together.

Then, someone's padding feet brush across the room's carpet, taking uncertain steps around the piles of rotting food. Ronon's fallen asleep on the floor. Opening his eyes, he sees the Second's shoes in front of his nose. Waking brings back the flood of need so intense it turns his belly into a scaffold of pain.

"Where did you get the seeds, big man?"

"I can't…" Ronon begins, realizing that this is his last protest, the only resistance he has left.

"You can," the Second replies. "You must! You are the child needing his mother's breast."

He lays a pod on the floor an arm's length away. Ronon reaches for it, but the Second teasingly whisks it away.

Ronon covers his face so no one will see his twisted features or show him pods that he cannot have.

The Second steps away. "Another day, perhaps," he says, closing the door to the vandalized room.

OoOoOoO

"Ronon." A drop of water is placed on his cracked lips. His tongue races around, catching every molecule. Another drop and Ronon is sure that this is more than mere water. He opens his mouth hoping for more and more until he is full.

"Woman! What are you up to?"

"I'm giving him water, lest he die, Dor Milson."

"No water permitted."

"But…"

"You are new, so this will not be reported. Give him the injection now, so we can leave. He stinks of himself."

Ronon feels a pinprick on his arm. Maybe they are giving him vitamins or stimulants or sleeping medicine. The water droplets made his tongue tingle, evidence enough that Happy was in them.

Someone wants to save him.

Two drops of water did not help. If anything, they drove him closer to madness as if he were starving and given a single luscious berry. Too weak, too parched to move, Ronon remains on the floor, breathing "I can't I can't" until the words' meaning is lost to him.

The following day, the Second returns. He takes Ronon's hand in a gentle grip.

"You are indeed strong. No one has ever survived this long without confessing," he intones with almost fatherly concern. "The Master has a wonderful future planned for you, but first you must tell us what we need to know about the seeds."

Ronon whispers his new mantra. "I can't…"

"You will. Otherwise you will be brought to the edge of death and then back again so all you will know is craving and suffering over and over…" The Second's voice breaks. "The Divine One cannot help you until the Master has what he wants."

So the future is this. This room, this suffering, without death or faith to free him.

He opens his eyes. The Second's face looks blurry, disconnected from the rest of him. Ronon moves his lips and the Second bends closer.

"I'll talk," Ronon rasps.

OoOoOoO

The Master, who appears to have nothing better to do, stares at Ronon as he is brought to another room, small, made of metal, furnished with a simple upholstered chair in the middle and a clear, resin window on one side.

"Sit and stay seated," a voice piped in from another location tells him. Ronon obeys. He's been given water and nothing else. Two big men had to help him to this room, and Ronon couldn't even try to fight them off. Now he sits as tall as possible, arms wrapped around his middle.

On the other side of the window, the Master holds a bowl, which he tips up to show that it is full of pods.

"A scourge on our world," he says, his voice muffled as it passes through the plastic pane. "Debauchery, pure and simple."

He shakes the bowl, looks at it wistfully.

"In my youth, I took them. Yes, I admit it. They made me lazy, foolish. Women left me because I loved Happy more than I loved them. Now I love everything, with the help of the Divine One."

The Master takes from beneath his uniform jacket a golden medallion shaped like the sun, with spiking rays emanating from a simple circle.

"I found Him through my suffering, prayed to Him over and over, begged for His mercy, told Him that if He freed me, I would bring Him to every corner of the world. By force, if necessary. Non-believers sometimes are so stubborn they must be beaten with a stick before they appreciate being handed their supper.

"It is my belief that coming to the Divine One can happen only from the depths of need. So I bring this need to everyone by giving them pods or placing Happy in the wafers I generously provide. When denied their poison, and they come to the Divine One as I have. They eat pure food and relish their faith in the Almighty."

Sermon over, he kisses the medallion and shoves it back under his clothing.

"The sublime lies at the end of a difficult road. Some resist the journey, resist the plan I've laid out for them. Making it work means keeping seeds out of their hands. And someday we will move beyond our single planet, to other worlds. I have sent out volunteers to help bring the Wraith into the circle of belief."

Ronon recalls the campfire meeting between Wraith and humans and the drunk woman's claims to know Master D'lin's intentions.

"The Wraith," he says, hoping he'll remember something of this conversation when it's over.

"Yes, the Wraith will one day be freed of their unholy appetites. I have brought Happy to them to begin that process."

Sick as he is, Ronon still can't resist a derisive snort.

The Master peers narrowly through the resin window. "I see you doubt my plan will succeed. Look to yourself for the answer. So large, so strong, brought back to infancy because of this." He holds up a pod. Sweat rolls down Ronon's back at the sight of it.

The Second steps to the window. His Master hands the bowl of pods to him and leaves.

"These pods are yours," the Second says. "Tell me where you obtained the seeds and you can have them all."

Ronon looks at his shaking hands. Veins and tendons stand out on the backs.

"You are eager. Imagine their liquid rolling under your tongue, big man."

Ronon imagines this. Imagines biting down, the gleeful anticipation of waiting for Happy to hit his bloodstream and soar into his brain.

"Your suffering is almost at an end."

"It's not." His suffering won't stop, will never, never, never stop until he has more Happy. His belly wants it and his brain wants it and if there were really a Divine One up in the heavens, He would surely come now to soothe this fire.

"Tell us."

He can't. Sheppard pops into his mind. And Teyla. McKay and Elizabeth and the doctors who care for him when he gets hurt, and the pretty, brown-haired woman who always smiles at him in the hallway…

The Second removes a pod from the bowl and places it in his pocket.

"There, I've taken one away. Each time your answer displeases me, I will confiscate a pod. You said you would tell us from whence the seeds came. By all means, fulfill your promise."

It's only one pod out of dozens, but it is Ronon's and he wants it back.

He says, "A place far from here..."

"'Far from here' doesn't tell me much." Another pod vanishes into the Second's pocket.

"Through the Ancestor's ring!"

His vision blurs through teary eyes.

"Ah, through the ring. I could have told _you_ that." The Second places another pod into his pocket. "Tell me the names of the symbols used to get there."

"They're just lines. Drawings! I don't know their names, just the places on the dialer."

A handful of pods this time, taken from the bowl and flung into the air. They scatter on the floor like animal droppings, as if these priceless things had no value.

The bowl is now half empty. Ronon shudders in the chair, making it scrape along the floor like bones dragged on concrete.

"You won't tell us?"

"I can't!" More pods scatter. "Take me to the ring. I'll bring you to the planet. To…their city."

The Second stops short. Two pods remain. "A city?"

"It's huge. Lots of people live there. My…my friends."

"You are being truthful?" He reaches into the bowl again.

Two pods.

"Yes, I promise you."

So simple, so efficient. One moment Ronon's weeping with need, the next he's weeping for his lost courage.

The Master would like nothing better than to bring his stinking mists and sacks of pods to Atlantis. Ronon imagines everyone there lying dazed in their quarters, watching the past replay like a revisionist history. Everyone. Sheppard, who brought him to Atlantis to begin with, and Dr. Beckett, who took the Wraith tracker out of his back, and Elizabeth, who tries so hard to reach out to him.

"I promise," he whispers.

The Second comes into the metal room. He stands before Ronon and hands him the two remaining pods. Ronon places both in his mouth and bites down hard. Immediately, his belly relaxes and his mind spins away towards glory.

The Second bends down to Ronon's ear. "You gave up your honor for this."

TBC


	11. Part I, Chapter 11

**Part I, Chapter 11**

Strange that a place as barren as the Ruined Planet could be so important.

Maisica is still eerily quiet when Sheppard steps into the city center with McKay and Teyla behind him.

No surprises this time. Each team member carries a small filtering mask. The masks haven't been tested against the sallow mists, but they keep out other gases. No surprises at all.

They scramble over the city's debris, not stopping until they are out on the road towards the farm where Ronon fell. No mist streams from the pipes on either side of the road, which stretches straight across an undulating plain of nothing.

The original mission has not changed: Acquire pods for the besotted woman who said she possessed information about the Wraith and humans together. To this has been added another goal: Locate and retrieve Ronon Dex.

They travel the long distance from the stargate to the farm, reaching the settlement at sunset to find it deserted.

"McKay, you picking up any life signs?"

"Just us," comes the reply.

"Range?"

"Two hundred feet or so."

"Keep your eyes peeled, everyone," he says.

They check the entire farmstead, from main house to its many outbuildings to the edges of dried fields beyond, but find no pods or people or, thankfully, telltale gravesites.

As night falls, a distant lighted city halos the horizon. Sheppard, Teyla and McKay stand outside the main building after their evening meal, staring at the dim arc rising up beyond where the land curves away.

"How far away you think that place is?" Sheppard asks.

"Maybe thirty miles," McKay responds.

Teyla gazes back towards the lifeless Maisica, from which no lights shine. "At least one city survived on this part of the planet."

The night, though warm, is frankly still, with no wind or natural sounds to fill the ear-ringing silence. Burying his discomfort, John ponders the weak luster bouncing off low clouds so far away. If pods and Ronon are to be found, that is the most likely place to find them.

"I'll take first watch," he says. "Teyla, second, then Rodney. We'll head out at first light."

OoOoOoO

McKay tosses and turns on a thin mattress dragged down from the upper level of the main house. He is no longer sick from what the Dream Machine did to him, but sleep still proves elusive.

Eventually, he gives up and pulls a snack from his pack to keep him busy for a while. Since Elizabeth has kept his and Teyla's dream output, he studies other things on his datapad, problems that went by the wayside while he obsessed over playback.

Teyla shifts on a mattress next to his. She sits up and looks over at McKay's datapad glowing bluish-white in the darkness.

"You cannot sleep?" she asks.

"No," he replies.

"What are you working on?"

He shows her the pad. "Stabilizers under Atlantis. They draw a lot of power."

The pad illuminates her features, and McKay remembers Teyla's face--all of the magnificent things reflected in it--from his dreams: Courage and patience and an inborn cleverness that books and scholastics can't ever match.

"I am no longer angry with you," she says.

"You're not?"

She shakes her head. "I believe that the Dream Machine has a purpose, something that we do not yet understand."

Rodney's been thinking the same thing. Since his recovery, he's dropped the matter of the device and its uses for now. Sometimes ideas about the machine come to him, though, and he tiptoes into considering them as he would a quicksand bog.

"We won't know for certain anytime soon," he says, pulling his thoughts back to the pad.

She watches him studying the screen, then comes closer, well inside his bubble of privacy.

"I know you much better than before," she says, very quietly.

A shiver of terror and embarrassment rises up his spine.

"You…you do?"

She smiles knowingly, like an aged parent.

He looks away from her, feels his cheeks turning crimson and thanks the darkness that she can't see him very well.

"Same here," he says, adding quickly, "Not like a girlfriend or anything."

"Certainly not!"

"I'm just glad you're not mad at me, because we're out here in a place where they shoot needles at you and it's nice to know you've got my back in case…"

"Rodney."

"Okay."

"I would never let anything bad happen to you no matter how angry I may be."

"I know." And he _does_ know. The playback told him so.

OoOoOoO

No one on the Ruined Planet uses fuel-powered vehicles any more. Factories that made personal carriers stand still, rusting in their quiet lots.

The Master has a vehicle, though, a hovercraft that his Second has at his disposal, propelled by puffs of air exhaled through vents in its balloonlike bottom. The Master's people keep the hovercraft fueled. They shine it each day and brush out the interior.

Into this vehicle pile the Second, Ronon and two security agents. One agent sits at the controls with the Second to his right. Ronon and another agent occupy the back, where their knees bend sharply in the small interior. Exterior lights shine brightly in the predawn darkness.

"You got time for this?" Ronon asks the Second.

"Not really," comes the reply. "But I'm tired of the war. Let the soldiers fight without me today."

The vehicle rattles when its engine starts, then rises a few inches above the smooth pavement in front of the Master's massive home. Then, with air jets providing buoyancy, the carrier slides towards Maisica, where the stargate stands.

The pods Ronon ingested have already begun wearing off. The saturation tube pushed him over the edge from craving into full-on enslavement. Less than an hour has passed, and his skin burns from deprivation.

Before leaving the Master's house, the Second placed a few more pods in his pocket, made a show of it so Ronon would notice.

"I know lots of other places where seeds come from," Ronon tells the Second, as the vehicle glides away from the courtyard in which it is stored. "For a price, I'll show you all of them."

The Second turns in his seat. "You are a sorry piece of rot."

"You made me this way," the Satedan snarls, leaning forward to meet the Second face-to-face. The security agent pulls him back, holds his needle weapon to Ronon's side.

Every pothole registers on the air jets, making the little chassis shake and jar when it passes over them. At a spot where the road has heaved up massive wedges of pavement, the Second orders his driver away from the highway entirely to travel above the scrappy remains of farmland.

To busy himself, the Second provides commentary. "Citizens are not allowed to grow their own food anymore." He points down. "This last farm settlement was cleared out only a few days ago; a young man, a mother and infant. The Master loves babies and…."

The agent driving suddenly jerks the little conveyance into a sloping circle. From his position in the back seat, Ronon sees Zin's and Cobel's farm, the cabin and the white main house with rutted fields beyond.

"I see them," the security man to Ronon's left says to his Second.

"See what?" Ronon asks.

The man ignores him. "Four?"

"Three," the Second replies. "Arms at hand!"

The vehicle lands with a graceless thud, spitting up dust and rocks when it hits the dirt.

"Who are they?" the Second says, staring out the windscreen at people running for cover. He grasps Ronon's hair and pulls him forward, forcing him to look ahead. "Are they yours?"

A flash of copper. Teyla's hair. A small white object held in his hand. McKay's life signs detector. The briefest glimpse of a black wrist band. Sheppard reaching out, pulling the scientist in behind him.

Cobel admitted writing the note that Sheppard found tucked into his vest, but Sheppard wouldn't know that. As far as anyone in Atlantis knows, Ronon told them not to come back. But here they are.

"Never seen 'em before," Ronon says, looking away as if he doesn't care.

Donning masks, the Second and his security agents bring their needle weapons to bear. The vehicle's doors open, allowing the Visians to exit.

"Close the door, big man, or the mist will take you," says one agent through his respirator.

Yellow clouds fizz up from broken tubes thrown towards the Lanteans hiding in the farmyard. Ronon's body shudders as a needle weapon fires. He can't think can't think from Happy, can't think can't think from fear. He reaches for the door beside him, which closes at his touch as the battle begins.

OoOoOoO

Sheppard, Teyla and McKay have taken cover behind a derelict animal pen. Its wide boards provide adequate protection for the moment. Mist obscures his view, but Ronon knows Sheppard is planning strategies, watching McKay's and Teyla's backs, as they are watching his.

One side of the vehicle faces the conflict. The Second crouches behind the other side, springing up from time to time to shoot a seemingly unending supply of needles, which spit out from the weapon and hit the fence boards like a hailstorm.

Sheppard and the others wear masks of their own, but Ronon swears he hears them call to him above the sounds of P90s rattling and needles singing as they pierce the air.

Ronon expects the hail of bullets thumping into the hovercraft. One shining slug pierces a window, nicks a stray dreadlock. Mist drifts in through the tiny leak. A little catches in his throat. He places his hand on the bullet hole. Through the cracked pane, Ronon sees Teyla fall back and McKay reach over and pluck a needle from her neck. The scientist moves lethargically, shakes his head as if to clear it. Sheppard holds a fencepost to support himself.

Ronon stops thinking. Sateda and Happy and everything else vanish from his mind as the simple urge to end the mess he's created overtakes him. He slams open the hovercraft door, knocking the surprised Second to the ground, and snatches the needle weapon from his hands. The decorated soldier ineffectually kicks at Ronon's legs, as if he had never learned how to fight, only how to wear ribbons and badges.

Ronon whisks the mask from the man's face and fits it onto his own. The mist has already begun working on the Runner, blurring the edges of his vision. His hands feel slow and clumsy as he digs into the Second's pocket, bringing out a few of the pods placed there one by one to steal his soul. He aches at the sight of them and uses a pocket of his own to hide this treasure.

With fear in his eyes, the Second stares up the barrel of his own weapon. Ronon remembers the Second's jolly expression when, posing as a spice merchant in the market, he first tempted Ronon with pods.

The Second coughs when the mist reaches him. "Without Happy, you will die, big man," he manages.

"Don't care."

"You will never know the Divine One's love."

Ronon responds by pulling the trigger.

The mask's warped plastic eyepieces and the putrid gas pull everything into a shifting haze. Sheppard has stopped shooting all together and the security agents who approach the animal pen pay no attention to Ronon at all. They don't see him stand clear of the vehicle or take careful aim.

Seconds later, both agents lie sprawled in the dirt, killed by needles shot through the backs of their heads.

Hurling aside the slender gun, Ronon races towards the enclosure. All three occupants lie slumped together, straining to breathe behind their masks. Uncertain what to do or say, Ronon crouches in front of Sheppard, shakes the Colonel's head by grasping his chin.

"You okay?" he asks, realizing how ridiculous that question is.

Sheppard opens his eyes halfway. "Took you long enough," he says, clumsily grasping his P-90 and pointing it at Ronon's head.

OoOoOoO

Eyes locked, the two soldiers try to read each other.

"You coming back? Nicely?" Sheppard pants, his weakened voice sounding more like a plea than a threat. He lowers his weapon slowly as his arms lose the conviction to hold it up.

"Yeah," Ronon replies, reaching out with both hands to show that he is unarmed and ready to help them.

The mist has been blown off by the constant winds that whistle around the farmstead's buildings. Ronon removes his own mask and then reaches forward to gently pull Sheppard's away. The Colonel breathes deeply and, never taking his eyes off the Satedan, holds out a hand, which Ronon takes to bring him to his feet.

McKay grunts with effort, drawing their attention as he pulls Teyla up and drags her half-standing out of the livestock surround. She is limp as cloth against him save for one hand, which grasps McKay's jacket like a vise.

"Oh…help," McKay sputters, swaying from the mist. He holds one hand against Teyla's neck, which bleeds freely where the needle struck her. "Shot…"

When McKay's legs threaten to give out, Ronon comes to his side, helping the scientist stay upright. Sheppard moves to Teyla's other side and together the four scuttle out of the enclosure.

Ronon nods towards the hover vehicle. "Sheppard, can you drive that thing?"

Sheppard looks worriedly at the tiny rover. "Whatever," he says, which Ronon takes as a "yes."

After helping McKay and the wounded Teyla into the hovercraft's rear seats, Ronon settles himself next to Sheppard in the front. After a number of false beginnings, Sheppard starts the vehicle and gets the air jets working well enough to scoot across the plain to the roadway beyond.

The ride to Maisica is nauseatingly rough as Sheppard collides with building debris jutting up from the street and from the city proper once they reach it. Teyla moans and wheezes and shifts spasmodically in the cramped back seat, while McKay, his speech slurred almost beyond comprehension, speaks quietly to calm her. Bright-red blood runs between his fingers as he holds his hand against the puncture in Teyla's neck. Rivulets slide down his wrist and drip onto the front of her vest. His voice is weak, a pale whisper as the mist overtakes him.

"Be home soon," he says, even though his eyes are closed. "Any minute, now…"

Sheppard keeps nodding out, which doesn't help matters. Ronon, beside him up front, calls his name and nudges him awake.

"Stay sharp," he says.

"'m sharp," Sheppard replies, snapping his head up and blinking emphatically.

Nearing the gate Sheppard half-crashes the hovercraft fifty feed from the dialer. He wipes a trembling hand across his face, then groggily tries to restart the motor. Ronon focuses him with a hand on his arm.

"No time," he says. "Teyla."

"Oh," says Sheppard, nodding dumbly. "I'll dial…"

But instead he passes out completely. Ronon shakes him, but the Colonel merely slumps over the control console.

Leaping from the vehicle, Ronon dials the gate with swift, certain movements. He'd long ago memorized the sequence for Atlantis, could press them in his sleep.

Never in a million years would he have brought the Visans to the gateroom. The Second and his agents were to die on a toxic planet on the perimeter of the galaxy, a beautiful and desolate place where Ronon himself had almost perished as a Runner years before. He intended to take them there, bring water or food from the benign-looking land, and watch the three succumb.

Then, unwilling to live as a captive to anything any longer, Ronon intended to bring the same poison to his lips and free himself, as well. He still hopes to take himself to that lonely place, to die where no one will hear him.

The gate activates. Atlantis waits on the other side. Wresting the Colonel from the hovercraft, Ronon pauses to allow the IDC to go through, then heaves Sheppard into the void.

Returning to the vehicle, Ronon finds McKay in a flat-out panic.

"It won't stop bleeding," he says, his hand lingering on Teyla's wound. Together Ronon and McKay struggle to remove Teyla. McKay walks with his eyes closed, making a valiant effort to prevent Teyla from bleeding out as Ronon supports him.

"McKay," Ronon says, "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah…."

"The drunk woman was gonna tell us that the Master wants to get the Wraith on Happy."

"'Course I'm not happy!"

"No, the Wraith. You have to tell Elizabeth."

"Tell…her what?"

They limp along, McKay holding Teyla, Ronon supporting McKay.

"You don't have to come back here. I got some pods for the drunk lady, but the Master…"

McKay's head falls against Ronon's shoulder. His legs give out not twenty feet from the gate, taking Teyla down in a heap with him. His hand comes away from the wound in her neck, which resumes its pulsating exsanguinations.

Ronon grapples with both unconscious teammates, but he cannot take them through together. Not knowing what else to do, he heaves McKay past the event horizon, then takes Teyla in his arms and places an awkward hand over her horrid injury, pressing hard to keep as much blood as possible within her.

He thinks of Sheppard's frank expression as he aimed his gun at Ronon's head. Surely no one in Atlantis will forgive him for bringing such misery into their lives. He will never forgive himself.

Then, although he never intended to see Atlantis again, Ronon tightens his grip on Teyla and walks into the blue.

**End of Part I**

_Thanks to everyone who has come this far and to those folks who left feedback. Part II will be posted on the same every-other-day schedule, starting in two or three days. _


	12. Part II, Chapter 1

**Part II: Atonement**

**Chapter 1**

Pods lie on Carson Beckett's desk, next to recovered filters from Sheppard's and his team's masks. While the pods are perfectly intact, the filters are pulverized, turned to dust by the strange yellow mist. Elizabeth runs her finger through the powdery residue and holds it up to the light.

She turns to Carson. "Well, we tried."

"Aye," he responds, flipping open Teyla's chart. "Here," he says, motioning her out of his office.

The infirmary lights have been dimmed to allow the patients there some rest. It is the dead of night, but when morning comes the lights will remain low to ease the headaches the mist causes. With painkillers on board, the headaches will abate some but continue for days.

Elizabeth doesn't wish to wake anyone, so she's very quiet and is careful not to touch the beds.

Sheppard and McKay look peaceful enough, with Imitrex and Demerol floating them through the worst of their migraines.

"Teyla?" she asks the doctor.

"Come see for yourself," he replies.

The Athosian lies apart from the others, in a brighter area where nurses can tend to her steadily. She is deathly pale with a large bandage on the left side of her neck.

"The needle did this?" asks Elizabeth, bringing a hand to her own neck in sympathy.

"Nicked her left carotid artery. Extremely dangerous injury even without the poison. She has a long recovery ahead of her, but should heal completely."

"Is she awake?"

Carson gazes solemnly at the Athosian. "In and out. She'll be happier asleep for the time being."

In another part of the infirmary, where McKay was taken as he sweated through withdrawal from the Wraith enzyme, Ronon pulls against his restraints, sedated but still moving, pumped with meds but still feeling the full impact of his need.

Elizabeth doesn't enter this room, just comes to the doorway and watches Ronon's torment.

"Nothing's helping?"

"Nae. He says he was gassed with the drug, made completely dependent upon it." Carson sighs and watches the cardiac monitor's crazy readings as his agitated patient knocks the leads around. "When he first arrived back here and told me what they did to him, I thought sedatives would work, maybe Tegretol, which sometimes helps with chemical dependencies. Two hours later, I realized he was in deep trouble."

Ronon thrashes so hard, his bed shifts left and right. Nurses and techs run to grab the sides to keep it from tipping over.

She asks Beckett. "Can you give him one of those pods?"

"I've already tried. He refuses to take it. Besides, I doubt we can wean him with only three. At best, we'd be delaying the inevitable."

Ronon stills momentarily and, through the dreadlocks falling over his face, stares directly at Elizabeth with an expression unlike any she's ever seen on him.

He says, "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," she responds.

He has yet to explain the note sent back with Sheppard on their first visit to the Ruined Planet. Even though Ronon lies helplessly sick, Marines stand guard nearby, flinching when Carson inserts another needle or Ronon shouts in pain when touched.

OoOoOoO

In her painful delirium, Teyla believes that she is wearing the Dream Machine, pouring output onto disk after disk, all of it the same images over and over.

_She creeps down a stairway and stops on the landing. A bedroom door stands open a short distance away. Moving closer, Teyla notices someone on the bed, rustling the covers before lying still. She steps into the room, comes within seconds of pulling back the sheets to see who is under them…_

Ronon's baleful cry knocks her into reality. She hears Carson murmuring "…gassed him with the drug…completely dependent upon it…"

_In her hands she holds the Dream Machine. The bedroom door is open, inviting her in. The figure on the bed lies still, as if anticipating her approach. She wills herself to stay in the dream, to complete it. The warm sheets feel real in her hands as Teyla pulls them back…_

_Ronon sits inside the hovercraft as the door closes…_

_Now he lies on the bed in the darkened room, turns his head away from her as if humiliated. _

"_I'm sorry…" he says, grimacing as a wave of agony ties him up._

_The headset vibrates in Teyla's hands. She fits the device over Ronon's head, shoving it firmly over his massive hair._

"_Other uses…" she says, when he protests. _

_Three men emerge from the bubble-shaped vehicle in the farmstead. They carry slim firearms. Behind them, she catches a glimpse of Ronon before he closes the door. He bears the sagging appearance and dead eyes of a user. Everyone in the galaxy knows the unmistakable signs, knows what Happy does when someone takes it and knows what happens when they stop._

_Her dream backs up. The headset vibrates in her hands. She places the device on Ronon's head, roughly tugging it into place. He raises his hands in protest but she slaps them away._

"_How _could_ you?" she says, understanding for the first time why Ronon ran from her, ran from them all towards the farmstead. Far up the road, someone shoots him. Teyla watches Ronon fall…_

A hand on her wrist pulls Teyla from these thoughts. In the distance she hears Ronon sobbing and grunting in pain.

"Teyla, it's Rodney."

She tries to speak, but her neck and head protest, and emesis rises, teasingly, before settling back. Taking slow breaths, Teyla keeps from getting sick.

"…stable. Bruised trachea…." Carson says, replacing the bandage to her neck. His warm hands feel good as he rubs the red areas where the tape irritated her skin.

McKay whispers something about Happy. Perhaps he's read her thoughts or had the same ones on his own.

"You can rest in your quarters, Rodney," the doctor says, and in her mind Teyla sees Rodney turning to leave.

"R…" she just manages to say.

A pause. He's already left! He must come back. She lifts her arm, feeling the IV cannula pull on the back of her hand as Carson tries to settle her.

It won't work with Carson. Only McKay will understand.

"R...," she tries again, pushing against Carson's efforts. Her head pounds as her stomach begins to spasm. Tears roll down her cheeks.

"Teyla." Rodney. She searches for his hand, waving her own in the air in front of her until he catches it.

Ronon hollers again, the sound vibrating in Teyla's skull.

In a vision, she is Rodney, he is she. They stand with the headset between them, sharing their experiences and knowledge about the puzzling device instead of arguing about who gets to use it.

Her voice emerges as nothing more than a sigh, but she hears McKay breathing close to her. "Tell me," he says, sounding more patient than she's ever known him to be.

"Headset," she whispers.

Oh, she thinks, he's going to get angry about the Dream Machine, think she's trying to squirrel it out of him even now.

"I'm still here. What about the headset?"

"Ronon." There. It's done. In the name of the Ancestors, she hopes he understands.

"Oh," he says, simply.

"What?" asks Carson, who can't hear what Teyla and Rodney have shared.

Teyla's feels Rodney release her hand and lay it down gently at her side. "I get it," he says quietly, mindful of both of their headaches.

She wonders how she could have hated him as they fought day after day over the Dream Machine. There isn't a truly wicked bone in his entire body.

"Carson, where's Elizabeth?" he says.

"In her office. Why?"

"I need the headset. Now."

TBC


	13. Part II, Chapter 2

**Part II, Chapter 2**

"I've modified it."

"So I see."

McKay's had a challenging time. The headset doesn't fit over Ronon's hair and he doesn't want to ask anyone to cut off the dreadlocks. The Satedan's in enough agony as it is.

So McKay's taken the device and added extensions to the top, where there are no wires to mess with, and expanded the forehand band. Now it's ready.

"I know you don't trust it."

Elizabeth reaches out to touch the unit, but withdraws her hand as if the thing will bite her. "Can you blame me?"

Carson's hands-in-pockets stance betrays trepidation, as well. "You could barely think when you were using that thing, and now you want Ronon to trade one problem for another?"

"It's not that simple."

Elizabeth crosses her arms. "It never is."

"I wouldn't suggest this if anyone else had a viable alternative."

He looks at each of them, waiting for a rebuttal that doesn't come, then fusses with his datapad, scrolling through line after line of Ancient text. Finding what he's looking for, McKay turns the screen toward Elizabeth.

"Here. Read it. This is the purpose of the device. Or one of them, anyway."

The three have sealed themselves in Carson's office, door closed, but Ronon's weary pleas for death still reach them. Three days have passed since the Runner threw McKay across the blue threshold onto the gateroom floor. Rodney has finally managed to get Teyla's dried blood out from under his fingernails. Looking upon Ronon, he sees that no one has completely scrubbed the stains off the Satedan's hands.

After reading the datapad for several minutes, Elizabeth places it on Carson's desk and drums her fingers thoughtfully on the tabletop.

"You see?" Rodney says. "It can record his thoughts and feelings, even the sensation of the drug itself."

"So you're saying that this…thing was designed to treat addictions?"

"Maybe. Even if it wasn't, I've made improvements."

He tries not to look too proud, but it's difficult. After all, the Ancients were awfully bright. Just not quite as bright as he.

"Risks?" Carson asks. "He's very sick, Rodney. You were perfectly healthy and look what happened."

"I'm almost certain there are none."

"'Almost'?"

"It's Ancient technology." Which explains everything. "Anyway, the point is that if Ronon can be given some of the drug and allowed to record his dreams and sensations, we might be able to feed this back to him. First we play back a lot of his output, then reduce the amount bit by bit until he's cured, over it, whatever you want to call it."

From the next room, an exhausted Ronon mutters a rumbling plea. "Go away," he's saying. "Let me alone!" From time to time, his voice almost as dim as Teyla's, he says, "Divine One…" uttered with desperation and hope.

It's enough to shake them all to their bones, as if Ronon were being vivisected right there.

A nurse approaches with a datapad, which she hands to Carson. "He's decompensating," she says, before hurrying back to the patient.

Carson looks over at Elizabeth. Rodney knows that it's Carson's call and, save for the fact that Elizabeth has banned the Dream Machine, he wouldn't feel obligated to consult her.

"I think Rodney's right, Elizabeth. Ronon can't go on much longer without…"

"Go ahead," she tells him, picking up the headset and handing it to him. "Maybe this thing is useful, after all."

OoOoOo

His body feels wasted, shrunken, as if taken by a Wraith. People circle around, their words sounding like growls from beasts that eat their weak. Ronon is dying, his brain punishing the rest of him for his folly.

"Divine One…" His lips move in a silent prayer. If only the Master were there to show Ronon the path to peace. "Divine…" What does He look like? How does it feel to be held in His calming embrace?

"Ronon." Beckett touches his arm. "Open your mouth."

It's his salvation and he wants it and hates it and needs it and must resist even if it kills him. Ronon must be stronger now than ever, for taking even a single pod will send the Divine One's spirit away.

He says, "No," and means it.

"We're trying to help you, man!"

"I said no!"

With his arms and legs battened down, Ronon's only weapons are his teeth. Beckett will have to be careful if he wants to keep all of his fingers.

They force a bite stick into his mouth to pry his jaws apart. The plastic implement is turned just so and a pod quickly introduced.

When the stick is removed and his jaw forced shut, Ronon can't help himself. He bites down, loving and despising the slick juice that slides down his throat.

Within seconds, he relaxes into pleasant thoughts, barely noticing when something is placed around his head. He is with Melena and then the woman he knew before her. There is his house, its little rooms and simple furnishings and the big, big bed. He feasts on his visions, drinks in the joy he once gave to and received from others, all of this spread before him like an unending banquet.

"How are you feeling?" asks Carson at his side.

Ronon nods.

"Vitals are improving."

"Hmm." Ronon doesn't know what "vitals" are.

When people touch him, he feels pleasure instead of pain. The bed stops rattling. He sleeps and wakes, opening his eyes to see the kindly souls who took him out of the forest and into their home.

The pain and longing return, bringing with them the memories of the tube and the Happy that soaked into his skin and crept down his windpipe. He twists his arms in their restraints until his wrists bruise. He must get to the mountaintop, up over the debris of so many fallen cities, to find the Divine One.

Then the thing is put back on his head and another pod pushed into his mouth. Ronon remembers drinking in pubs with his friends, laughing, spilling beer all over himself. Then he is in his little house with tiny Melena before the horrid sizzle of Wraith darts cut through the air above them.

His craving emerges a third time and, again, he takes a pod and, with eyes closed, feels the band secured around his head. Triumphant memories emerge of his long survival as a Runner. He wallows in pride at being stronger and faster and far more clever than any Wraith tracking him.

These jubilant memories end when the third pod wears off. This time, when his teeth chatter and he cries for liberation, Beckett works with a laptop next to his bed and adjusts the headpiece.

"Just relax," the doctor says.

He dreams and wakes and can't tell the difference between them. Hours and hours of joy fill his heart, as if he had never stopped taking Happy, as if he had never started with it. Dr. Beckett constantly reassures him, gives him medicine to help him sleep. Nurses come by. Ronon feels their small hands on his neck, counting his heartbeats.

Sheppard speaks to him, half in a dream and half out of it. "We didn't ask what you wanted," he says. "Rodney said to tell you it was Teyla's idea."

_Blood pulses out of Teyla's neck, running between McKay's fingers…_

Ronon realizes he's in the present. His arms move freely without restraint as the device is removed from his head.

"Teyla," he says, forcing the dreams to fade. Before him stand Sheppard and Carson. "She alright? McKay?"

"They're fine," Carson says. "You're the only patient here, right now," he adds, tapping a table for luck.

The headset that McKay showed Ronon in the lab ages ago lies on a small table nearby. Some long, crinkly hairs are caught in the webbing.

"That's been on me?" he asks.

Carson explains about the Dream Machine and how it's being used to help Ronon through his troubles.

Noticing the security detail standing nearby, Ronon wonders whether he spoke in his sleep about hiding pods under his bed, about carrying seeds to Sardu to gain his just reward. As a diversion, he describes the Master's plans to bring people to the Divine One by giving them Happy and then taking it away.

"Master thinks he can draw in the Wraith, too," he says, his gravelly voice weary from days of suffering and living inside of dreams.

Carson _tsks_ as he checks Ronon's pupils. "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Why not just preach to them, get some disciples to spread the news?"

Ronon isn't familiar with Earth religions. "Does that work?" he asks.

"So far," Sheppard says. "And he wants to give Happy to the Wraith?"

"'S what he told me. That's what you saw by the campfire. People giving Happy to the Wraith."

"You think the drunk woman was going to tell us this?"

"Yeah."

Still shaking and needy, Ronon moves to the edge of the bed and pauses there, getting his balance back. He handles the Dream Machine headset, turning it over and about.

"How long do I gotta use it?"

"I don't know, son," Carson says.

Ronon says, "Forever?" uncertain that he will ever be able to live without Happy.

"Nae," Carson tells him, glancing at Sheppard. "The idea is to gradually shorten the amount of time you have it on."

Sheppard assists Ronon as he stands for the first time in days. "Too much Dream Machine causes its own problems," he says.

Released from the infirmary, Ronon goes to his quarters. The Marine contingent is dismissed, but Sheppard accompanies him, explaining Rodney and Teyla's involvement with the machine and what happened to them because of it.

"You have dice in this galaxy?" Sheppard asks him. When Ronon nods, he continues. "So we roll the dice and see what comes up." He gestures towards the headset and its assorted adjuncts, which Ronon carries in a box. "It's been working so far, so…" His voice drifts off, leaving behind a burdensome silence.

For a fleeting moment, Ronon wants to talk about his own foolishness with Happy, to reveal the real beginnings of his hunger for it. Strangers pass in the hallway; agoraphobia chases his honesty away.

When they reach Ronon's quarters, Sheppard sets up the Dream Machine. The Satedan waits for John to leave, pushes through the gaps in their conversation that he's supposed to fill.

Finally, perhaps realizing that this isn't a good time for banter, Sheppard backs down. He offers a brief note of encouragement and a hopeful wave before leaving. "I still got a headache, "he explains.

"Me, too," Ronon responds, as his door closes out the rest of the city.

A short while later, when the pain and chills and misery return, he plays back disk #23, the one with his drugged output on it. He awakens later as if coming out of Happy itself. Then days pass with the up-and-down of craving and cure, craving and cure, until a week has gone.

Sometimes Ronon uses the device at the first sign of withdrawal, when the creeping depression begins slowing him down. Usually, though, he waits for the full-blown symptoms.

Carson monitors his condition and notes how often he uses the Dream Machine and for how long.

Facing people is even more difficult now than before he left Atlantis, so Ronon eats alone and rests often and ponders everything that he put these people through.

Lots of times he denies himself the headset for hours, choosing to spiral up into the worst desire because he still wants the Divine One to shower him with blessings. In between Happy and the headset lies another place, where he's certain the Master's god will find him.

OoOoOoO

Days later, when Teyla comes to see him, she is still weak and has to be careful lest her movements pull on the wound in her neck. Ronon helps sit her on the bed so she won't have to stand.

"Thank you for bringing me home," she says, her voice painfully raspy. "You saved my life."

"You saved mine getting that idea about McKay's head thing. Guess we're even."

She swallows carefully, trying to get more words out. "No one wanted to leave you there, Ronon. We were…delayed returning. I am sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for."

She seems to accept his brusque absolution, and then points to the headset. "Is Rodney's Dream Machine helping you?"

"Yeah. I use it a lot."

"Rodney and I had some difficulties with it."

"Sheppard told me. I'm good."

She looks at the device warily. "Each day use it less than the day before. We can walk together or do something else while you are away from it."

Walking and pod-taking aren't nearly the same thing, but he says "Right."

The quiet that follows her words is telling but he can't read it. Maybe she wants answers to the questions no one's asked him, yet. He hasn't discussed with anyone why he ran to the farmstead, leaving his team to the mist on the road, and doesn't blame them for wanting to know.

"I have something for you." She hands him a playback disk. "Rodney and I made this together."

"Thanks." A finger of cold trickles down his back, an early sign of withdrawal. "I'm tired," he says, trying to end Teyla's visit.

"I understand," she replies, allowing him to help her up and out into the hallway. He's glad that Teyla doesn't ask him to explain himself or express how he's feeling. They're not that close yet, and perhaps never will be. "You will call if you need anything?"

"Sure," he replies. Looking at the bandage on her neck, he says, "You, too."

Alone again, Ronon inserts Teyla and Rodney's disk into the Dream Machine. His need for Happy is very strong, now. Placing the headset over his massive hair, careful to let the wired extensions make contact with his forehead and face, Ronon lies on his bed and waits.

The disk contains pieces of Rodney's and Teyla's dreams.

_Ronon's in McKay's lab with all of its blinking lights and, for once, he understands what they mean. McKay dreams of Elizabeth and Sheppard and Zelenka and lots of other people, and the scientist gets annoyed with them, even angry with them, but all the time he still likes them or loves them or at least doesn't hate them. _

_When Ronon sees himself in McKay's dream, he feels the warm comfort of his own presence and McKay's relief when the Satedan takes the threat away. He catches McKay's amazement at the sight of Wraith and humans sitting together at the campfire. Then the flash of Wraith stunners and the needle weapons, and McKay's terror because Ronon's gone when they need him most. He hears McKay's thoughts, sees the blurred images of what happened that night and feels every second of what his absence meant. The connection is so intimate, so deeply private, he's surprised that McKay would reveal himself like this._

_A blank moment passes. Teyla spars with Ronon. He watches himself through her eyes, feels her competitive nature rising up to meet his. She walks down a stairway and gazes into a darkened room. Inside his own head, Ronon feels her flash of disbelief and hears her say, "How _could_ you?"_

_Then comes a nightmare: Wraith by the hundreds storm Atlantis. They feed on Beckett and on Sheppard and on people Ronon doesn't know but likes anyway because Teyla does. Then Ronon sees himself through Teyla's eyes, running up the dusty road towards the farm on the Ruined Planet. When he falls back and the sound of the shot finally reaches her, her numbing loss and silent screams are his._

Ronon had no idea that Atlantis would connect him so tightly to these people. When the playback disk finishes, Ronon sleeps, dreams of his shame and of searching for a way to erase it.

In the morning, he pops the disk out of the interface cassette. It feels warm, like a newborn creature just out of its mother's womb.

TBC


	14. Part II, Chapter 3

**Part II, Chapter 3**

Sheppard comes by a couple of days after Teyla.

"How's it going?" he says, knowing full well that Ronon rarely speaks to anyone and leaves his quarters only to fetch food at the mess or else work out by himself while most of the city sleeps.

"I'm good."

The room is mostly bare, but Sheppard seems to take great interest in the walls and floor. He reaches into his pocket and hands Ronon a piece of paper. "Did you write this?"

In Cobel's script is the warning to leave Vis and not come back. "No," he says, "Someone on the farm wrote it."

Even if he doesn't believe him, Sheppard looks like he _wants_ to. The Colonel tucks the note back into his pocket.

"So, what happened? With the drug and everything."

"The tube…"

"I'm talking about before that, before they pumped you full of it."

Ronon is speechless at the Colonel's question.

John's gaze doesn't waver. "Yeah, I've blindsided you."

Yes, he has. Ronon hasn't told Beckett anything about taking pods. Before his withdrawal overtook him, he explained about the tube. He wasn't lying; just not telling the entire truth about hiding pods under his bed and imagining fields of yellow fruits as he ran towards the farmstead.

"How did you know?"

Sheppard shrugs. "Teyla suggested it."

Teyla and Rodney's dream disk helped place Ronon on the path to recovery. Some parts of it heal him better than others, and one part_—"How _could_ you?"_—should have been given more attention.

Ronon looks Sheppard in the eye, perhaps the most difficult thing to do right now. "That planet where you and Teyla got shot, the one with the Wraith and the people, I was looking for Happy. Thought I saw some fruits growing in the woods. That's why I wasn't there when the shooting started."

John stands leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, listening.

"I don't know how it got so big, wanting it. Just one day it was everything. When I saw the farm on the Ruined Planet, I needed it a lot. Made me take off like that. Disobeyed your order to stop."

Ronon rubs his chest where the needle hit his sternum. He feels a little bump where the scar is.

"So you allowed the Visans to capture you there?"

"No. Civilians lived on the farm. The Master's Second took me in the city, in Sardu."

Sheppard stops for a moment, putting the pieces together in his mind. "Why did you go to Sardu?"

Thinking about his long walk on the road with fantasies of bathing in Happy as his inspiration, Ronon lowers his head. "They said if I took plant seeds to some people in the city, I'd get some Happy in return. They don't allow seeds there. The Second caught me." His arms twitch recalling how easily he fell.

Sheppard comes closer, less relaxed, more demanding. "Have you always used it?"

A fair enough question. After all, Ronon hasn't been a part of Sheppard's team all that long and certainly hasn't shared much about himself in the interim.

"No. Never until after the Wraith enzyme. Then a guy on a planet we went to gave me one. The Second. It was him."

Talking about all of this is both humiliating and liberating.

Standing there quietly, Sheppard waits, but there isn't any more to tell.

"Okay," he says at last, "eventually you have to come out of your room. There's a meeting with Elizabeth and Carson at eleven hundred hours. About the Master guy and the Wraith. Y'know, 'Happy' stuff." He makes finger quotes in the air, which lightens the mood some.

"I'm staying here. You go talk." It's not nightfall, yet. Too many people around.

Sheppard doesn't leave. "Consider it a formal debriefing. Nobody wants to go back to the Ruined Planet to get more pods for the drunk lady. You probably have enough information so we can forget about her."

Remembering the plastic stick separating his jaws and the feel of a pod shoved between his teeth, Ronon says, "Told Carson I didn't want any."

"You kept them to give to her?"

"Not sure."

"You might be dead now if we hadn't given them to you."

It would be disrespectful in the utmost to tell Sheppard they ought to have let him perish. Especially when they worked so hard and sacrificed the pods, which they could have saved and given to the woman.

Ronon shakes his head, unable to say the things he's thinking.

"Look, Ronon, we didn't know why you left. Caldwell wanted to haul you back in handcuffs."

Ronon feels from the Dream Machine how much McKay depends on him, Teyla's frank despair believing that he was dead. And now here's Sheppard, trying to trust him again.

"Okay," John says, noncommittally, trying to read through all of the defensive layers Ronon's put up around himself. "When this all blows over, I still want you on my team—if you're willing."

"Why?"

Pointing to the headset, the extensions on which are beginning to fray from daily use, Sheppard asks, "What's McKay's machine told you?"

Ronon thinks about what he's seen and heard and felt from the playback and realizes that Sheppard _is_ the headset. And McKay and Teyla and Elizabeth and everyone else who has shown up in the dreams he's been feeding himself. They're so close, they are solid, unlike the abstract Divine One, and Ronon can have them anytime he needs them, these people who have planted themselves in his soul.

OoOoOoO

A few weeks later, they come through the wormhole to a place called Faladis. Teyla knows it as a simple agricultural outpost, part of a series of cooperating planets that might be willing to trade. The gate is located in the center of a small town that lies tucked under heavy forest in a pleasant valley.

Farm animals wander about, foraging as they can from shrubs and weedy, overgrown gardens around crude shelters made of fabric and boards. Aside from the sound of stalks breaking as animals bite them, the town is silent.

"Hello?" Sheppard calls.

"Strange," says McKay, looking around nervously. "I thought you said this place was thriving."

"It is," Teyla replies. "Or was."

"Not much happening today," Ronon says. Approaching one of the tents, he pulls back the opening flap. "Sheppard."

Inside the tent, two toddlers lie on a single, unmade bed, staring enraptured at the ceiling. At a table sit a man and a woman, each bearing the same stuporous expressions as the children. These people live rough, for Ronon sees no finery in their home, not a pillow on the bulky straw mattress or cloth coverlet for their rickety table.

The central cooking pit has gone cold; the uncovered children tremble, goosebumps prominent on their skinny arms. Teyla finds blankets and tucks them around the children, as Sheppard approaches the adults.

"Hey," he says, nudging the man. "Wake up!"

The man smiles up at Sheppard. "Ilda, we have guests!"

The woman blinks alert.

"Oh!" she says. "Welcome!"

She rises and shuffles to a cloth sack lying nearby. "You must be hungry, having come from…wherever you came from."

From the sack she pulls a half-dozen spongelike wafers, beige and blue and green, and places them on a wooden plate.

For a moment, the team looks at Ronon.

"I'm okay," he says, stepping back from the generous woman and her plate.

"Where did you get those?" McKay asks, pointing to the wafers.

"Traders bring them from their world. Please, eat!" She sets down the plate and sits at the table.

"Your children are cold," Teyla tells her. "Why did you not cover them?"

"The…children…" The woman looks over at the little ones lying on the bed. "I must have forgotten."

"It's that stuff," Ronon says, indicating the food.

"The food is fine," the man says. "We trade livestock for it."

"Oh, yeah?" McKay gives up looking for energy readings and places the monitor in his pocket. "Well, your meal tickets are running all over town."

"No. They're in the pens."

"See for yourself." McKay lifts the tent flap. Several animals prowling about scurry at the sudden movement.

The man hardly reacts. "So they got out. Here, I will put them back." He leaves the tent and whistles and claps his hands to no effect. Instead, dozens of animals trot off into the forest.

"The others will help," he says.

Ronon follows the man to each tent, watches him shake the people living there, all of whom are dumbfounded by Happy.

"Arnos! Farva! The pens have broken! We must bring in the animals!"

But no one pays him much attention, lost as they are in their bliss. Ronon spies bags of wafers with every family. Children smile up at him with rotting teeth, their clothing smelly and stiff with grime.

Ilda has started the fire going in her tent. She hums pleasantly as Ronon returns. He keeps away from her, from her tempting plate, as do the rest of the team, who rouse the children and help the woman bring wood to the fire. Ronon remembers how Zin hummed as she fed her infant and wonders what became of them.

Having failed at acquiring help with the animals, the man returns. "Perhaps they will come back on their own," he says, fanning himself from just these lackluster efforts.

"I wouldn't," Ronon says.

"You don't know how it is," he tells them. "For generations we have sold our livestock for other foods. But soldiers came, slaughtered our beasts. The forest grows nothing but creeping vines and plain trees."

"Soldiers?" Sheppard tenses, his hands tightening on his weapon, a wordless signal to Ronon, to his team, that this bucolic settlement may hold unseen dangers.

"Months ago they came through the Ancestor's circle with guns and, oh, it was a terrible day!" His pleasant expression crumbles at the memories.

"What did they look like?" Ronon asks. "Their uniforms."

"Plain. The color of sand. Why do you ask this? They look our livelihood from us! The few beasts we have left will not grow into herds for a very long time."

He looks at the plate Ilda has prepared. No one on Sheppard's team wants to get too close to it or to the sack of wafers on the floor.

"Where did you buy those?" Teyla asks, standing well away from the odd nourishment.

The man's face broadens with delight. "They were sent to us by the Visans, as a charity. A spice merchant arranged it. We know him from the markets."

Ilda walks dazedly from the fire pit to the children, carrying with her a metal pan with warm water in it. Dipping a ratty cloth into the water, she gently rubs down her childrens' faces and hands, giving them a loving but ineffectual bath.

"Are you certain you do not wish to eat?" she says, gesturing towards the wafers bulging in their sack.

Ronon turns away. He puts the image of the wafers out of his mind and breathes deeply.

Sheppard comes to his side. "We're leaving. How you doing?"

"Fine." He can't believe their first offworld visit since making it back to Atlantis has him running into the very thing he's trying to get over. "Not too bad," he adds, truthfully, feeling much lighter now that the weight of his secret has lifted.

After a brief goodbye, they walk away from the tent and its occupants.

Teyla approaches the Colonel. "These people are helpless. We cannot just leave them."

Sheppard looks around at the huts and the animals creeping out of the woods. "Well,_ I_ don't know how to raise goats—or whatever those things are. I'll suggest another team be sent out here to patch things up, get their gardens going again."

McKay has been quiet throughout, except to grumble at the repeated offerings of wafers. Now he walks beside Ronon, uncomfortably striking up conversation.

"I don't suppose you were looking for fashion tips back there, asking about uniforms."

"The Master's people wear sand-colored uniforms."

"So they killed off the animals and gave these villagers Happy instead?"

"Yeah. The Second dresses up for markets as a spice merchant. He came here after the soldiers to get everyone up on the wafers."

"Even if their gardens grow for them again, when their herds are full, these people will still want the drug," Teyla says, spreading her arms wide to indicate the entire village.

Ronon looks back at the rugged huts. The couple smiles and waves from their doorway.

"Bye, now," says Sheppard. "Take care of your kids."

Ilda still holds the plate with wafers on it. The man takes one and eats it. His wife does the same.

TBC


	15. Part II, Chapter 4

_A.N. - Greetings to everyone on New Year's Eve! Many thanks to those who have taken the time to leave feedback. The USDA Food Pyramid ought to have a Feedback category, since it is filling, fat-free and inexpensive. Best wishes to you all for a great 2008!_

_Once again, I'd like to give a shout-out to my beta, Aslowhite, for her hard work on this story and her enduring (and endearing) support._

**Part II, Chapter 4**

"I told you not to go easy on me!" Teyla sits astride Ronon's belly, holding twin bantos rods against his throat. He is so broad and her legs so short that in this position her knees don't reach the floor.

"I'm not," he grimaces.

With one last little push to his neck, Teyla releases her hold and stands, shoving her hair off her face. After a pause to center herself, she tenses, en garde, and waits for Ronon to take the basic attack position.

"I know when you are holding back," she growls.

"Oh, yeah?" He takes his time, lets her think what she will. Climbing to his feet, he shakes out his shoulders, gives his neck a graceful turn. Teyla won't see it coming because she doesn't believe it will…

He attacks with an unsuccessful parry, another and another, and then Teyla's on the floor, her legs knocked out from under her. She takes it well, though, and gets up quickly.

"I am glad to have my worthiest opponent back," she says, smiling.

"Glad to be back," he replies.

They prepare for another encounter, circling the gym. Rich, golden light spilling from the windows plays over their bodies. The door sweeps open, but they pay it no attention, expecting Sheppard to join them at any time.

"Ronon." Elizabeth stands at the entrance. "A word?"

He hands his bantos rods to Teyla and lets Elizabeth draw him aside.

"You're doing well," she says, reserved but obviously pleased.

"I am," he replies.

"You're an important asset to Atlantis. Colonel Sheppard believes you have overcome your involvement with Happy."

"Yeah," he says, waiting for her to get to the point. "I'm doing okay."

Taking a breath, Elizabeth comes out with it. "We need to explore more fully the impact that Happy may be having on other planets. Is this a problem for you?"

"No problem," he tells her.

"If it is, I can send someone else in your place."

"I'm good."

He feels want and need, but they are transient dangers. When they come he recalls McKay's dependence, Teyla's emptiness as he runs towards the farm, and Sheppard's mortar-like trust holding them all together.

"You're sure," Elizabeth says, and he has to appreciate how skillfully she's couching her inquiry.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

OoOoOoO

The next world they visit is more advanced, with proper wooden houses instead of tents. Brown smoke rolls by the gate when they arrive. Cleanly demarcated by the main street running through, one half of the town lies burned to the ground. Ashen piles still smolder, reeking of immolation. On the other side of the street stand perfectly intact houses and shops, each decorated over the door by a stamped golden symbol: The spiked sun of the Divine One.

Townsfolk keep to the unburned side of the street. They nod to the approaching off-world team, casting wary glances up and down.

"Greetings in the name of the Master!"

A tall woman steps forward, her arms flung wide as if to embrace them. She wears a medallion that matches the symbol on the buildings.

"Hi," says Sheppard, puzzled by her joy. He introduces himself and his team, explains their interest in trade and in fighting the Wraith.

"Visitors are welcome here. Do you wish to rest from your journey?"

"Not so much. Say, what's with that?" He points to the smoldering ruins.

The woman's face tightens petulantly.

"Pay it no mind," she says. "The path to the Divine One is strewn with rocks."

Sheppard glances at Ronon.

"Don't know," says the Runner.

They are brought to a building larger and newer than the rest, standing tall at the edge of town. Inside, benches laid in rows face a tiered altar. More spiked sun emblems sparkle on the walls and on white flags pinned to the ceiling. In the altar's center hangs an enormous painting of the Master wearing the white robe of a holy man, not a beige uniform with medals all over it. A multi-colored halo encircles his head. His face registers vapid glee as his hands cup mounds of food, beans and grains and berries.

Ronon nudges Sheppard. "The Master," he says, indicating the painting.

The team demurs when food is brought to them, insisting they have just eaten. But instead of colored wafers, the plates hold real food, fresh produce, oven-warm bread smeared with red jam.

The woman says, "My name is Norin. I lead this town by the grace of the Master. Do you know of his greatness?"

"Sure," Sheppard responds, as he and the others smile.

She turns to leave, but Teyla stops her with a question. "We have not seen such fare in a very long time. How did you come by it?"

"You do not live in the Divine One?"

Teyla beams. "We are just beginning to know Him. Do tell us your story."

Norin sits quickly, delicately arranging her skirts.

"He is our salvation!"

McKay asks, "From what?"

"Some people came one day, a hundred or more strangers armed and threatening to kill us all. They incinerated our fields. Everything gone, not a single stalk of grain survived."

"But they didn't kill any of your people?"

"A few, yes. Those who tried to stop them. We are an unarmed world and could not engage them. After our fields were destroyed, we suffered, starved until traders brought us food. Strange, colored things." She holds her hands together to form a square. "The food, though plain, gave us joy. We came to want it and to wait for more shipments from the traders.

"But then the food stopped coming. A great sickness fell over us until the priests came and gave us news of the Divine One. They bade us pray and sing each day from sunrise to sunset, and one by one we saw the truth and believed. Then our kind Master brought us seeds from which we grow our harvests. We thank him and the Divine One for showing us the way."

Ronon looks at the repast before them. Smoke drifts into the great hall in which they sit. "So you burnt down half the town?"

Norin's back stiffens. "They refused to believe. Said the Master was manipulating us, poisoning us with the food he offered. Once we were well, once we came to know the Master's beneficence, we couldn't live with those who did not share our faith. We shunned them to one side and lived separate, never speaking to them. But the Master sent word to destroy those who would not follow the Divine One."

A silence follows, thick with unasked questions.

Finally, Sheppard speaks. "So their houses were burned. Where are the people?"

Like a schoolchild admitting a prank, Norin brushes at her skirt, picks lint off the fabric and, with shaking hands, flicks it onto the floor.

"We gave them every chance to follow the Master's teachings," she whispers.

McKay says, "Oh, no…" and looks at Sheppard.

"When it became clear that they would never join with us in faith, we put them in their houses…"

Teyla's eyes narrow as she says, "You did not…"

"…and blocked the doors and the windows…"

Tears roll down the woman's cheeks, curve around the creases of her brittle smile.

"…and set fires…"

"But these were your neighbors, your friends!" Teyla stands in outrage. Ronon pulls at her arm to seat her again, but she refuses, her expression so full of venom he thinks she might slug him.

"Yes. Family, some of them, too. All have gone to De'em, where the Divine One lives. He will decide the fates of their souls."

Sheppard rises from his seat, hands tight around his weapon. His team follows, hastily leaving the great hall.

"It did not happen this way with you?" Norin scuttles along beside them, wiping her face quickly as if to hide her remorse from others in the street.

The stargate is located on the far side of town, past the blackened mess. What Ronon thought were fireplace logs or pieces of burned furniture now reveal themselves to be the charred remains of people, even entire families, who clung to each other as they suffered their ghastly deaths.

OoOoOoO

The four are so shaken and pale when they step through into the gateroom that Carson and Heightmeyer and Elizabeth put them on immediate stand-down.

In time, Elizabeth calls them to the conference room with grim news. Exploratory teams have witnessed strange events on other worlds. Entire populations lie dazed from the tainted wafers. Some suffer withdrawal, begging for Happy, for release. And in many places, the golden suns have appeared and, with them, violence of unimaginable depth pitting believers against heretics, friend against friend.

Elizabeth places on the table one of the medallions picked up by Lorne's team. Ronon stares at it, utter hatred rising in his chest.

"Master's doing it. Making everyone crazy," he says.

"You said he had plans for the Wraith, as well."

"That's what he told me."

It's obvious where Elizabeth will send them next. They all have reservations about going there and say almost nothing while preparing for their journey.

They gate to the place where Wraith and humans commingled around the campfire. This time, no smoke rises from the forest. Recalling Rodney's dream, Ronon recognizes the lichen-covered rocks, the gritty path where Teyla and Sheppard took needles. He doesn't leave the path this time, staying close to everyone.

In the deep part of the forest, the path curves around to the spot where the campfire burned that night. Teyla doesn't feel the presence of Wraith, but still they approach carefully.

Lying on the ground are three bodies bearing the unmistakable signs of having been fed upon. Soggy, decomposing wafers lie strewn about carelessly.

Sheppard toes the goo with his boot. "Guess the Master's plan's got a little hitch in it."

"We saw them together in peaceful conversation," Teyla says. "A Wraith tasted the wafer."

"Doesn't mean he liked it."

Wraith may no longer be here, but Ronon feels discomfort anyway. He forces himself to not look into the forest, where a tree with yellow fruit grows wild. Even now, Ronon can't believe how desperate he was, pulling fruit from the branches, making the wood snap loud enough for the Wraith to hear.

"Ronon?" Sheppard stands behind him, scrutinizing his teammate.

"Huh?"

"Anything important going on down there?"

And Ronon realizes he's staring at his feet, wrapped up in his thoughts, when he should be paying attention.

"No."

"Good, 'cause we're outta here."

OoOoOoO

Elizabeth calls meetings, Sheppard calls meetings. The results of the Wraith/human campfire meeting were not unexpected. Dr. Brown, the botanist, and Carson Beckett use a lot of long words, medical terminology that Ronon doesn't understand to discuss the pods' chemical makeup and their physiological effects.

"I'm not surprised that Happy has no effect on Wraith," Carson says. "I'm actually rather amused that anyone would try to get them hooked on it."

Ronon wants to stop thinking about pods and the religious wars that they are causing. He's free of Happy, can go for days and not have it cross his mind. What other people choose isn't his business, so he brings his body back to the way it was before so he will be able to defend himself and his team should the need arise.

At night, the Dream Machine stays in its secure cabinet, where McKay has locked it away now that Ronon doesn't need to use it anymore.

A few weeks after returning from the planet with the shrunken bodies beside the campfire, Ronon receives a buzz on his headset asking him to report to Elizabeth's office. McKay and Sheppard are in there, as well. The physicist anxiously fiddles with his datapad.

The gold medallion that Lorne brought back lies on Elizabeth's desk.

"More and more teams are reporting that use of the pods is spreading throughout the galaxy."

Ronon shrugs. "So?"

"You don't care?" she asks, surprised.

"Should I?"

McKay looks at him at last. "Are you crazy? Before long, billions and billions of people will be totally hooked on that stuff."

Elizabeth says, "The fact is, if the Wraith are to be defeated, we can't do it alone. The more people become dependent on the drug, the less able they will be to fight against our common enemy."

"So then they get over it." Ronon holds up the medallion. "They go to the Divine One and are able to fight."

Sheppard's watching this exchange with dissent written all over his face. Ronon is certain that the Colonel and Elizabeth have been arguing.

"They only want to fight each other," he says with disgust. "Like we saw where they burned half the town. Lorne reports that now the Master's telling them that the Wraith have all been—what was the term he used?"

"'Tamed'," says Rodney, rolling his eyes.

"The Master told them this?" Ronon can't believe the man's audacity, the depth of his lies.

Elizabeth nods. "Yes. Missionaries pass on false information about the threat the Wraith pose, encouraging devotees to turn on non-believers instead."

Ronon looks at the medallion. "What do you want me to do?" he asks.

Sheppard tenses. "You don't have to say yes, Ronon."

"Sheppard…" Elizabeth warns.

A divided front. Unusual, but Sheppard and Elizabeth have disagreed before.

"We'll let him decide," Elizabeth continues, her eyes never wavering from Ronon's face.

Sheppard scowls and looks at Rodney, whose eyes shift from Ronon to Elizabeth and, finally, to Sheppard himself.

Rodney says, "There isn't another way."

Ronon doesn't know what all this stressed-out banter is about. The room grows quiet, as everyone watches him turn the golden medallion in his hands.

"What do you want me to do?" he repeats.

TBC


	16. Part II, Chapter 5

**Part II, Chapter 5**

The plan is simple. Ronon likes simple.

This is his atonement, something he wants more than Happy, more than anything right now.

The golden medallion, polished to a gleaming shine, hangs around his neck, bright against his leathers. In the hems of his trouser legs are sewn tiny, glassine envelopes filled with a scourge, a fungus or a mold, something that Dr. Brown and Dr. Beckett and McKay and Elizabeth discussed in painful detail while Ronon thought about what the Ruined Planet will be like when this is all over.

Carson, typical for him, renamed Happy "Indifferent," which explained things well enough, he guesses.

The team steps through the stargate into the center of Maisica, the wasted city.

"Masks ready," says Sheppard, and they pull at the devices around their necks to reassure themselves. The filters fragmented from the mist, sure enough, but it took a while, and that may buy them a little time should the need arise.

But nobody bothers them. The city is dead and intends to remain so.

Ronon doesn't think he can make it all the way to Sardu if his heart keeps beating so fast. Teyla's been trying to teach him to meditate, so he takes a deep breath through his nose then exhales slowly. A wedge of calm pries through his anxiety.

At Maisica's western edge, the now-familiar road stretches out for many desolate miles. Here and there a dust devil scrapes across the landscape, like a prowling watchdog.

"We'll know where to find you," Sheppard says, patting his left arm as McKay removes a small monitor from his pocket.

"It's working perfectly," the scientist says.

Ronon looks down at his arm, where Dr. Beckett inserted a subcutaneous locator device. It took Ronon a long time to decide to get one; after so many years on the run, how could he be certain that the Wraith wouldn't pick up this signal, as well?

He looks at his teammates. Teyla has a whiteish scar on her neck where she took a needle. She transmitted through the Dream Machine the feeling of his hand holding in her blood. McKay showed him the day Ronon first protected him with his body. And Sheppard believes, which no dream needs to capture. He believes and believes and nothing will ever shake that.

"I won't be long," Ronon tells them, glad that there isn't a lot of back-slapping or hugging to see him off.

"You think six days? A week?" Sheppard adjusts Ronon's pack, an act of almost embarrassing intimacy.

"Don't know. Maybe. A few days to get there, one to do the job. A few days back."

"You sure you want to do this?"

"We've had this discussion…" McKay begins.

Sheppard holds up his hand. "I just need a little reassurance, McKay."

"Already said I was sure," Ronon responds.

In the distance, a band of travelers makes its way to Maisica. Sheppard peers at them suspiciously.

"Missionaries, probably," McKay says. "We should…" He steps back, points with his thumb towards the stargate.

"Don't be seen with me," Ronon tells his friends. "Elizabeth said I'd be better doing this alone."

Sheppard shakes his head. "I know what she said," he responds, looking from Ronon to the approaching crowd. "Okay. Well..." He pats Ronon's arm, where the transponder was put in, and winces when Ronon does. "Sorry. It'll be sore for a day or two."

"I know."

Teyla doesn't say anything. The night before she brought him a batch of _sampas_, Athosian cookies filled with jam. She wrapped them well and stuffed them into his pack, said she had faith that he would succeed.

Ronon turns and begins the long walk to Sardu. He doesn't look back at Sheppard when he hears the Colonel's uncertain "See ya," or at McKay still holding the device that picks up the transponder signal. He smells the _sampas_ as hot sun beats down on his shoulders.

OoOoOoO

Signs of rebuilding appear the farther Ronon walks from Maisica. A tavern, several shops selling practical items. The sunburst is everywhere, on doors, scratched into the stucco encasing rammed-earth walls.

"Greetings in the name of the Master!" people say as he passes.

Ronon nods, then kisses the medallion as he has seen others do.

He passes the Zin's farm, which is now occupied by new families, who sing as they repair the buildings and fences:

"Away to the harvest field,  
Gather in the golden yield;  
Gird your armor and faithful be,  
For the Master calleth thee."

From time to time, individuals and groups kneel just off the pavement, praying to the Master, holding their medallions in cupped hands, speaking praises in unison. Ronon joins them in body but not in spirit.

His first night traveling, Ronon creeps into the leveled remains of a small town destroyed in the war. He eats part of an MRE and leaves the rest for morning. Rebuilding hasn't started here and no one's stamped gold sunrays anywhere. One building in particular seems like a good place to sleep. Some bedding there is not too ruined from the elements.

Long before dawn breaks, Ronon is awakened by the sound of an animal panting nearby. Leveling his blaster into the darkness, he waits. It's too much to hope for, and yet there is Dog, just visible in the wan moonlight, waiting for his snack. The animal scurries backwards, shy as always, when Ronon sits up.

"You want food?" Ronon asks him, ripping open a Bread Snack, since Dog liked it last time. He throws the morsel, which Dog catches in his mouth and swallows quickly. The food looks a little like the Master's wafers.

Then Ronon lies back down and Dog curls up on the floor beside him.

OoOoOoO

Before leaving on this mission, McKay presented Ronon with a wristwatch.

"It's got an alarm clock on it," he said, making it beep when he pushed this button and that.

"Only goes up to twelve," Ronon told him.

"Might come in handy anyway. You never know."

Even though he prefers his wrist gauntlets, Ronon removed one and strapped the watch to his arm. The watch was a nice gesture; very much like McKay to give him something mechanical with mystifying features.

At seven a.m. Atlantis time, the watch beeps and vibrates. After fussing in the darkness with the various buttons, Ronon eventually shuts the thing off. He doesn't know how long he's slept but is rested enough for the day ahead.

The sky has just begun to lighten as he takes to the road again. No one is about this early, which suits him well. He doesn't like putting himself out as a fake believer, bowing towards the city where the hideous Master lives.

Dog comes to the road, trotting with the Satedan. It is okay company, obviously capable of looking after itself in this harsh environment.

Today fewer people walk the road. They smile and speak of the Master. Some of them try to pet Dog, but it runs to the fields or hides behind Ronon's legs.

"Silly beast!" one person says.

"Smart," Ronon replies.

Only the Master uses electricity, now rare and precious on the Ruined Planet. At evening, the lights of the Master's stately home twinkle in the distance. Ronon steps off the roadway and makes camp on some dry acreage a couple of miles from his destination. He must approach the Master's house in the daylight, as if he has nothing to hide.

This night Ronon finds no mattresses on which to lie, so he makes a pillow of his pack and stares at the moons traversing the heavens. The place where the subcutaneous locator is buried itches a little. Sheppard and the rest are back in Atlantis, but he feels them with him, stuck in the locator somehow, watching over him.

The next day, Dog refuses to follow when it figures out where Ronon is going. It sits on the road, whining anxiously, just as it did the first time they arrived on the outskirts of the Master's city.

"Gotta go," Ronon tells it. "See you later."

The animal stays put for a long while. When Ronon looks back a third time, it is gone. Very smart, he thinks.

Mounds at city's edge, which Ronon on his first journey believed to be garbage dumps, can no longer be construed as anything but mass graves. The thousands buried here were not evil or murderous. They were skeptics who failed to embrace the Master's teachings about the Divine One. The earthen heaps go on for leagues, all unmarked save for occasional holes where animals dug down into them.

Most of Sardu still lies in ruins. A few buildings have risen here and there: Places of worship, mostly, and a few tenant units made of gray blocks with small windows.

With brazen courage, Ronon approaches the Master's house. No one seems to be around, not even security guards patrolling the wide, perimeter sidewalk.

He calls out, "I want to see the Master!" His medallion sparkles in the late-morning sun. "I am grateful. Let me praise him!"

He has not been alone, after all, not that he believed he was. As before, security men creep out from the wreckage surrounding the mansion.

"Drop your weapon! Raise your hands!" one says, aiming his needle gun carefully, while others withdraw glass tubes from their uniform pockets.

Ronon does as commanded.

"You don't need to shoot me or throw the glass," he says, pointing to the pendant on his chest. "I'm with the Divine One, now."

The security guards speak quietly to each other. They don't know how well Ronon hears, especially in the quiet courtyard.

He hears, "The white one," and sees a guard pull a different glass from his pocket. This he throws towards Ronon. It breaks at his feet and a white mist engulfs him. It is as quick acting as the yellow mist, so when he turns away, it is already too late. Better the mist, he thinks, than fatal needles piercing his heart. The scene around him dims, but this time Ronon doesn't fall into an ocean of silence. Strong hands pull him towards the Master's house.

"You believe?" someone asks him.

"Yeah," he says, thinking of Sheppard and of McKay and of Elizabeth's steady eyes on him. Then, mimicking the singing workers on Zin's farm, he says, "They call to me."

TBC


	17. Part II, Chapter 6

**Part II, Chapter 6**

"I prayed you'd return. The Divine One listens."

Ronon lies in the fancy room where he broke up furniture and smashed paintings in the throes of withdrawal. Someone has cleaned up the place, put up fresh, new curtains and replace the carpet that he soiled.

The white mist is less toxic than the yellow, so Ronon is lethargic but has no headache or disorientation. He lies naked under a thin blanket, sees his clothing piled on a chair nearby. Beside the chair stands the Master, displaying even more medals and decorative ribbons than before.

The Master says, "Have you really embraced the Divine One?"

"He healed me."

"Utter the Prayer of Salvation and I will believe you!"

"Don't know it. That's why I came back."

"You carried a weapon," the Master says, lightly touching the pile of clothing. "Is that the way of a peacemaker?"

Ronon answers, "Teach me to live right," praying to his own god that no one has found the spores in his trouser cuffs. A clever hiding place, but not at all secure.

"My Second died by your hands!"

Ronon loves lying to people he hates.

"I don't know who killed him. We were attacked somewhere but I made it back to my homeworld."

"Tell me where you got the seeds. I haven't forgotten about that, you know."

"The seeds are gone. I burned the fields, everything."

"Deceiver!"

"They're still burning..."

"I should kill you now!"

"Smell my clothes if you don't believe me."

This is a nice detail that McKay thought up.

The Master brings Ronon's leather vest to his nose and sniffs. Ronon stood before one of the cooking stoves in Atlantis's kitchen and, wearing a mask for protection, let wood smoke waft over his body for an hour, until every inch of his clothing, every hair on his head and every pore in his skin smelled of holocaust and arson.

"I wanna know the Divine One, Master," Ronon says, bowing his head in false supplication.

Placing his hand on Ronon's hair, the Master runs his fingers along a dreadlock all the way to the end. "An angel shall consort with the beasts," he says.

OoOoOoO

For several days, Ronon is kept in the fancy room, where he is expected to pray. He is given pamphlets full of colorful pictures and long, rambling sermons about the glory of the Master's god. A lady comes to the fancy room bearing an annoying-sounding stringed instrument. She teaches him hymns, boring ones, praising the Master and his open channel to the Divine One.

"Onward, therefore, goes the Master,  
Onward, we go to his aid;  
Bear His name, and fight His battle,  
The Divine One's might we pray."

In the evenings, Ronon joins a group of neophyte worshippers in classes extolling the Master's goodness. No one explains why the Master was chosen to lead the crusade or what good or bad things the Divine One may have done to prove his holiness. A teacher carefully explains the circuitous route to Salvation through the Master to the Divine One and then on to a place called De'em, where souls go when a body dies.

"But you must preserve your bodies," the teacher says. He is a stiff-backed soldier, solid and direct, the sort of man Ronon would have respected on Sateda. "To reach others and pass on the glory of the Master's teachings, you must be strong."

Ronon understands now how someone fighting withdrawal from Happy could easily choose to live by these words. Had he been here, listening to this instead of hooked up to the Dream Machine, he might not have been able to resist.

The others in the classroom shake with need as Ronon once did. They wipe sweat from their faces, or wrap their arms around their aching bellies. Yet, one by one, they open their eyes as if seeing for the first time.

"Bless the Master," they say. "Lead us to the Divine One."

"My soul was lost," says one. He turns to Ronon and pulls his chapped lips into a dreamy smile. It is Cobel, flush with feverish need, his sunken eyes radiating hope.

"Yes, we all want to live in the Divine One's grace," the teacher says. "But some are too weak or too stubborn to believe. What ought we do with them?"

Cobel raises his spidery hand. "Preach to them!" he shouts, anxious to please. "Offer them food and kindness!"

The teacher scowls and shakes his head. "They are like grains of rotten feed," he says. "One morsel will spoil the entire crop."

"Kill them," says Ronon, and the entire class looks his way, for he has not uttered a word until now. "They're useless."

"That seems harsh, Mr. Dex," the teacher says, as the class nods in agreement.

"Necessary," he replies.

The teacher pauses to let the moment sink in. "Indeed. My children, the Master wishes peace to all worlds. But this isn't possible for some. If we don't act against them, they will act against us, for they hate our freedom and our generosity."

He comes to where Ronon is sitting cross-legged on the floor and places a hand on the top of his head.

"See this man. He is strong, but once he was weak, like you. He fought through his unfortunate desires. See him now, here to tell you that violence plucks the sour morsels from our calling, leaving only purity behind. Those that stand in our way must perish."

People sitting near Ronon reach over and touch his body, stroke his wild hair and press their fingers against the tattoo on his neck as if it will help them through their misery. Their cold fingers feel like snakes sliding against his skin.

Guards still walk with Ronon wherever he goes. After class this night, they lead him to the Master's grand dining hall, where he sits at the end of a long table covered with a delicate lace cloth. Large paintings of armed victories decorate the walls. Fine food is placed before him, so he eats well and sips a grain brew that smells of wildflower honey. A quiet thump echoes through the chamber. The Master stands at a far doorway, framed by a colorful tapestry in the hallway beyond.

"You are full?" he asks, entering.

"Yeah," Ronon replies, rubbing his beard to ensure that he's left no bits sticking to it. Sitting straighter, he remembers his place. "Thanks…thank you for your kindness."

"Your teacher is impressed by your participation in class this evening."

"Good."

"You are ready for your first assignment."

Ronon's been waiting for this moment.

"I wanna grow pods, serve the Divine One," he says, to the point. Enough time has been wasted already.

The Master raises his eyebrows. "Why?" he asks.

"I was a farmer. A long time ago."

"That is good to know." He has many chairs to choose from, but comes to sit to Ronon's left. A servant quickly moves the seat out, then pushes it back in as the Master settles himself. In short order, a plate of candies is set before him. He takes one and holds it up for a good look. "I would not have taken you for a mere farm boy. Your size, your natural athleticism."

Ronon leans back in his chair, hands held loosely in his lap, seemingly relaxed.

"Well, in any case, it doesn't matter. Your task will be different. Humans are easy to impress. The Wraith are another matter. Volunteers sent to introduce the Demon Fruit to the Wraith have not reported back."

"Might be on account of being fed on."

"I don't think so."

Ronon raises his eyebrows but says nothing.

"I think that the Wraith have welcomed them with open arms and my followers have decided to stay on with them."

"You're kidding."

The Master looks at him sharply.

"You doubt me?"

"No, Master," Ronon straightens respectfully.

"Your task will be to travel to several worlds where the Wraith live and bring the cakes with Happy to them. But you must not dally as those others have. Report back quickly on what you find there."

This is a delicate situation. The Master's blind faith in himself and his drug has run a thousand miles beyond the bounds of reason.

"I'd rather farm for you," Ronon says.

The Master rises. Like so many of late, he places his hand atop Ronon's head.

"You have no confidence in yourself, Servant Ronon. But I am confident, because I believe that I am right. A journey awaits you. When you return, we will talk again."

TBC


	18. Part II, Chapter 7

**Part II, Chapter 7**

"Ronon's taking too long. We shouldn't have left him there."

"McKay…"

"Who knows what's happened to him. Maybe he's…"

"…hooked again. We've been over this a dozen times. We need to stick with the plan."

McKay looks across the table at the Colonel, who appears quite relaxed for someone who has sent a lone team member on a mission that could require thousands of well-armed troops.

"How long does it take someone to go to wherever they're growing that stuff and contaminate it? An hour maybe. He should have returned by now."

"Give him time," Sheppard says, a platitude that does nothing to calm McKay's nerves. "He'll be back when he's done."

"And in what condition? What if he gasses us and turns us into Happy zombies?"

"He won't do that."

"How do you know?"

"He got in over his head with that Happy business, just like you did with your Dream Machine. That doesn't mean either one of you can't be trusted."

Mention of the Dream Machine stops Rodney's fidgeting. "Good point," he mutters. "You didn't want him to run this mission alone any more than I did. What changed your mind?"

Sheppard looks around the cafeteria, quite unnecessarily, since the two of them are the only people in it. The answer to McKay's question plays across the Colonel's face.

"Sheppard, tell me you didn't."

"I did."

"You _used_ it?"

"Once. Just before we dropped him off on the Ruined Planet."

McKay throws up his hands in exasperation. "Why did I bother locking it up? Maybe I should leave the Dream Machine here in the mess so _everyone_ can have a turn!"

"Keep your shirt on, McKay. This crazy plan, leaving Ronon like that. I had to be sure."

A few of his old dreams and Teyla's cross McKay's mind, along with memories of real events_. "I know you much better than before," Teyla says._ Rodney remembers that moment so well, the shiver that ran up his spine.

"And I _am_ sure," Sheppard continues, rising and pushing in his chair. "I want to give him a few more days. If he's not back in 72 hours, we'll decide then what to do."

After Sheppard leaves the mess, McKay sits for a long while, playing with the handle on his coffee cup. Then, without even giving it much thought, he goes to his lab and stands before the locked cabinet where the Dream Machine is kept.

OoOoOoO

When Ronon was given Happy to allay the pain of his withdrawal, his experiences were captured and played back to him in decreasing doses while he worked through his desire for the drug.

Like McKay and Teyla, Ronon left traces of himself behind that wormed their way into the upload filaments. Before locking the device away, McKay completed a final memory dump, the contents of which were stored on the last disk, #36.

McKay thinks about taking the Dream Machine to his quarters, but decides to use it out in the open, in the lab itself, because this time he has nothing to hide. Slipping on the headset, he connects the playback shuttle and disk #36 begins.

_Strangers speak to Ronon; he walks on unfamiliar planets. He pursues, he is pursued. He kills and sees others being killed. Wraith are everywhere, the constant menace, and Rodney feels his teammate's hatred and fear._

"Don't be afraid," Rodney whispers, unaware that he is speaking.

_Then Rodney sees himself through Ronon's eyes, hanging upside down in a red radiation suit. _

"_Dr. Rodney McKay," he stutters. "Can you get me down?"_

_Ronon thinks, _What a stupid, frightened man_, and he feels slightly amused at the sight of the flailing scientist._

Eyes closed, focused on Ronon's memories, Rodney smiles because, all things considered, he must have looked pretty funny.

_Carson Beckett appears before Ronon for the first time, the very face of compassion, something Ronon forgot a long time ago. "Why do you want to help me?" he asks, pointing his blaster at the doctor's heart, at Teyla's, at Sheppard's and Elizabeth's as each of them appears and vanishes in a strobing flicker. _

_Then events speed up speed up speed up, as if to get them over with, until Ronon keels over in shock and relief when Carson digs the Wraith tracker out of his back._

Rodney shudders and takes deep breaths.

_Memories roll out of Ronon's head into McKay's. Foraging for sour berries to fill his empty belly. Then hot food by the plateful and pure water. Atlantis, his warm, soft bed there, people who care offering him their hands their hands their hands…. _

_Ronon sees himself in a mirror for the first time in years, stares at his enormous build, feels the ends of his weighty dreadlocks tickle his shoulders and picks at the filth under his fingernails. He is a stranger to himself, an orphan in a dangerous galaxy with only his name to ground him._

"Dex," Rodney says aloud.

_A tree with yellow fruit hanging on it grows in the forest. Rodney feels what Ronon feels: The pleasure of Happy, the shame of wanting it. The tree burns, sending rolling smoke through the deserted farm on the Ruined Planet. Amid the smoke, Sheppard and Teyla and McKay lie slumped together in the animal pen, wheezing behind their ineffectual masks._

"_Never again," Ronon says. "Never, never…" He scoops up his teammates, and runs with them all the way to Maisica, to the gate home._

"Just like Teyla did!"_ McKay almost leaves the dream right there, but wills himself to stay in it because building with each memory is a tidal wave of trust and loyalty that grows until it crashes over Ronon, over Rodney, purifying him from the inside out. _

The disk ends, but Rodney doesn't notice. He's fallen asleep right there in the lab, with the headset still on, leaning cheek in hand. He dreams that he is Ronon on the Ruined Planet, alone there without his friends to back him up.

When he wakes, Rodney places the Dream Machine and disk #36 in their secure cabinet, feeling as if he's locked Ronon away with them.

OoOoOoO

Prickles pull insistently at Ronon's clothing. As far as he's concerned, the Wraith can keep this place. Any human stupid enough to live here deserves a horrible fate.

Ronon carries wafers with him. He surely wants one, but will never allow himself to take one ever again.

Before Ronon left the Ruined Planet, the Master's new Second instructed him to first leave wafers in Wraith encampments, so the creatures would pick them up, taste them.

"Then, once the Wraith find the wafers to their liking, you will come forward with more and with picture books about the Divine One."

"This is a stupid idea," Ronon told the Second, a small, impatient man, with sharp features and a thin frame barely filling his uniform.

"How would you bring the Wraith to the Divine One?" the Second asked.

"I wouldn't," Ronon replied. The Wraith aren't Dog, loyal for having been fed pieces of bread and spoken to every now and again.

The Second, who had been stuffing religious tracts into Ronon's ruck sack, pushed the bag away impatiently. "I will not hear this! The Master believes that we can spread devotion to the Divine One amongst the Wraith. I believe because he does. This is how it will be done."

"How many Wraith have you seen?"

"None," said the Second, busy again with the sack. "But why should they not know the greatest of all gods as we do?"

When Ronon asked for his weapon, the Second refused. "We come in peace. Should they notice your pistol, it will only turn them away."

"Have to protect myself."

"The spirit of the Divine One will be enough."

Then the Master's guards brought Ronon to the stargate in the nasty, cramped hovercraft. They dialed and waited for him to pass through.

"Don't trust me?" he asked them, but they didn't reply.

The Wraith have a lonely advantage in the galaxy. Thus, their unguarded gate held no threats as Ronon passed through it. That was hours ago, and, in the weakening afternoon sunlight, Ronon endures the prickles to reach the source of a terrible, distant hum. By the time Ronon comes to the edge of the overgrowth, he has scratches everywhere the thistles got to him.

It is possible to ditch the entire effort. But for Elizabeth's plan, he would have turned around on the Wraith's doorstep and left this despicable place.

A vast, cleared area stretches to the horizon, a harbor for hive ships, where they come for renewal and repair. Colossal vessels sway in the atmosphere, held in place by strong, grounded tethers. Domes spring from the denuded plain below, from which worker Wraiths carry supplies and wait to be beamed into the ships proper.

Ronon leaves most of the colorful wafers just outside one of the domes, placing them on a small pile of gathered rocks.

He's supposed to wait until Wraith stopping by consume the wafers before making his approach. The Second gave him detailed instructions on how to introduce himself and indicate that the wafers are gifts.

"Idiot," Ronon mutters to himself, smiling because this is exactly what McKay would say.

Waiting for Wraith to take the bait is even stupider than leaving it out for them in the first place. Instead of hiding in the painful shrubbery, Ronon heads back to the gate. He'll stay a short time, long enough to make the Master and his Second think he's got plentiful information, then return to Vis and lie his way to the gardens where pods are grown.

A stunner blast pierces the brambles, sending its trilling charge past his ear and a thorn into his forehead. Ronon instinctively reaches for his weapon, but the Visans armed him with only wafers and a larger medallion, as if such things would protect him from this.

Blue beams cross paths in front of him as he plows through the hedges, taking zig-zag leaps without regard for the pain. His hands part head-high nettles in a swimming motion to protect his eyes. Ronon has run like this many times, so he keeps on moving, just like always, as if the tracking device were never taken out of him.

The ground dips unexpectedly. The turf beneath him disappears; Ronon falls forward, hears his left arm snap and feels it give way as he tumbles downward. He grits his teeth, folds his arm across his chest and finally lands in a heap of leaves and mosses at the bottom of a steep gorge. There he gathers leaves about him, burying himself so that he won't be seen. Taking the slow breaths that Teyla taught him, Ronon lies still, smelling the good rot of rich soil under him.

Slow breaths…slow breaths.

The stunner blasts stop. No pursuing footsteps set the soil to trembling. Slow breaths. It is dark under his blanket, warm and familiar. When Ronon tries to move his arm, the pain is like a hot arrow lancing through him.

Hours pass. Wraith are tremendously patient when waiting for hidden prey to emerge. When he's certain that his evasion was successful, Ronon shuffles off his leafy blanket. The moon above is but a smiling crescent, thin and nearly lightless.

A trickling stream rolls languidly through the bottom of the gully. Cupping his right hand, Ronon drinks. Then, removing the gauntlet from his injured arm, he rests his throbbing limb in the cold water.

Several wafers remain in his ruck sack. He could eat one, probably should eat one for pain relief alone. Instead, he throws the wafers into the water, watches them break apart as they float downstream.

TBC


	19. Part II, Chapter 8

_A.N. – Many thanks, again, to those supportive readers who have followed this story thus far. Getting through a long fic like this takes dedication, to kudos to all of you! Just a few more chapters to go! _

**Part II, Chapter 8**

Ronon finds irrelevant the medical terms used to describe parts of his body.

Near as he can tell, his left lowerarmbone is broken. And brambles are caught in his hair and skin, where they have left bleeding cuts, some of them quite deep.

Moving stealthily, crouching, waiting, taking the slow breaths that bring Teyla closer to him with each inhalation, Ronon inches toward the stargate.

When his arm heals, he will strangle the Master, the most powerful idiot in the galaxy. "Leave wafers out for the Wraith…" he mutters without sound. "Introduce myself. Welcome with open arms…" Then he realizes that the simplest thing would have been to toss the wafers on the ground the moment he came through the gate, dial some harmless planet elsewhere and hole up there for a while.

"Now who's stupid?" he asks himself.

Heavy fog rests over the open field where the stargate stands. Hairs rise along Ronon's spine. After so many years, he can smell them. Many Wraith are here. One of them will eventually reveal himself.

The brambles give way to gentle forest, its low shrubs offering many places in which to hide. Soft green leaves brush his skin. Ronon steps silently, smoothly, imagining himself to be a _loovis_ cat stalking prey on the Satedan plains. He stops, waits, watches his dim surroundings before moving again, intending to take the DHD from a lateral position, under cover of fog to gain his best advantage.

A movement ahead of him! A Wraith, small, perhaps inexperienced, rearranges himself into a different sort of crouch. Ronon grins. Perhaps Wraith get muscle cramps like everyone else.

No matter. His enemy's small weakness will be his downfall.

In a moment, Ronon is upon him. The broken lowerarmbone grates against muscle and nerve as he wraps his injured limb around his adversary's thin neck and uses his good arm to twist until he hears the gratifying snap. The Wraith falls limp in his arms. Ronon lays him down slowly, biting back grunts of pain.

His left hand has gone numb, so he uses his right to lift the dead creature's stunner from his motionless fingers. Having a weapon will help, but only if Ronon can hoist it and aim effectively.

A bout of nausea hits him. Slow breaths. Deep breaths. Silent ones. The throbbing pain raises bile in his throat. Lights flash before his eyes. Escape through the gate will fail if he passes out. The fog begins lifting in the open field.

Another movement distracts him from his roiling stomach. Two Wraith, aligned equal distance from the edge of the forest. He's seen this formation many times before and now knows without thinking each sentinel's location.

Swallowing away his queasiness, he brings the stunner to his right shoulder and breaks for the field, shooting into the grounded haze. Experience has taught him that one Wraith is here and one is there and one is to the right of him and another to the left.

Ronon reaches the DHD, roars in agony as he uses his left hand to press the first key, the second. A blue bolt whizzes past him, setting his jaw to tingling. He ducks low, peers about. The fog is compressing, lightening at the top. A blond head just breaches its natural cover, so Ronon shoots it and the body falls. None of his blasts will last for long; at best, the toppled Wraith will be incapacitated for twenty seconds. But their aim will suffer, surely—his only hope.

The third key and the fourth. He goes low, again, shooting blindly. His foot takes a glancing blow that brings him to one knee. With his right arm hefting the stunner, he has no choice but to use his left to haul himself high enough to continue dialing. The fingers barely grasp the DHD's rounded side, but it's enough to give him the edge he needs.

The fifth and sixth keys. Each time he presses, his arm sends up shock waves that tear over his shoulder and blow explosions in his brain.

The seventh. And he lays his entire body over the dialer's surface to press the center crystal that will open the gate and send him away from this dreadful place.

Now there is the blue pool, defiantly placid as misaimed stunner blasts cut through its surface.

With a grunt, Ronon drops the rucksack from his shoulders lest its weight slow him down. Tottering on his tingling foot, he shoots and shoots with more desperation than ever before.

He won't make it.

Sheppard wouldn't say that. Never, never would he say that.

Ronon lurches towards the event horizon.

Never, never…

Yards away, then feet. Almost there, and multiple blasts hit him from behind, an ironic deliverance that propels him through the gate with the force of a locomotive.

OoOoOoO

Ronon awakens to a grisly sort of torture as his arm is set with an agonizing pull and a twist. He hears it snap, like the neck of the Wraith, like the sound of his arm breaking in the first place.

"Get off!" He tries to move, to beat away the hands, all of them, touching his body.

The thunderous stunner blasts have laid him helpless, weighing his body down with uncontrollable shivers and shakes. Even his mouth refuses to work properly, slurring his words.

The people tending him flutter away momentarily. Then, sensing that he can do them no harm, they come back to dab at his wounds and pull barbs from his skin, each thorn causing as much pain coming out as it did going in.

"You have done well, Servant Ronon." The Second's breath dampens his ear. "When you have recovered sufficiently, we will meet with the Master. He has something very special to show you."

Ronon cannot help but lie there, teeth chattering, as the hands continue their work. In time, someone lifts his injured arm and wraps a thin bandage around it.

"Dor Milson, it will not heal well like that," he hears a woman say.

"The Master wishes it like this," someone else replies.

For a while, Ronon is left to himself. He sleeps deeply until a sound of approaching footsteps brings him alert again. Zin stands at his bedside, holding a plate of food. Instead of her rough farm clothing, she wears a crisp, white pinafore over a long beige shift. He looks up at her curiously but says nothing.

"This is my job, now," she says quietly. "They came and took us from the farm, arrested Cob. I am…lucky."

"Your son?"

She breathes in deeply to remain in control, but her nose reddens and her eyes well with tears. "He is with another couple, people who pray to the Master and the Divine One."

"You! Come away from him!" The doctor, Dor Milson, approaches hurriedly. "What are you doing?"

"It is his dinner." She places the plate on a small table next to the bed, then bows lavishly towards the doctor and leaves.

"She is a mere novitiate," the doctor says. "One as esteemed as you should not be in her company."

Using his good arm, Ronon brings himself upright in the bed. The doctor stands watching but does not move to help.

"Do you know her?" he asks.

"No," Ronon replies.

"After your meal, you will bathe and make yourself presentable to the Master. He has been asking after you all day."

"Nice of him."

Not catching the bitterness in Ronon's voice, the doctor leaves the room, closes the door without locking it.

After his meal, which he has to admit is extraordinarily welcome, Ronon tests his body. Aside from the poorly splinted arm, he has the usual post-stunner tingles. Here and there a muscle spasms or a bandage pulls. The medical aides did a thorough job fishing brambles from his hair, for, when he runs his hand over his massive mane, nothing grabs at his fingers.

Realizing that he is naked under the bedding, Ronon looks about in a panic. His clothing has been shaken out and lies folded in a pile below the bed. He checks his trousers, noting with relief the secure hems. No one has noticed the envelopes tucked inside.

A doorless water room provides a place to bathe. Brushes have been laid out to scrub his body and teeth and hair. Upon a small shelf stand tins of washing-up powders, each marked with a picture-label showing the body part to which is it to be applied.

When he is dressed, Ronon opens the door and is mildly surprised to see two guards standing by.

Again, Ronon waits for the Master in the vast banquet hall. He cradles his aching arm as if it were a baby.

"Sit down, my Servant!" The Master's jovial manner annoys as he enters.

"I'm not a servant," Ronon replies.

"To be called Servant is a high honor, a title for those who have carried out my wishes! Come, come! I'll have them bring you candy."

"Don't want any." He looks at his injured arm. "Can I work on the farm, now?"

"What? Oh, yes, of course! You have done as asked. A True Believer! And so willing to step out onto a Wraith planet to bring the good news to them of the Divine One's beneficent nature. Each time we opened the circle, you were that much closer to success!"

The Master's has been jabbering on and Ronon catches only the end "…each time we opened the circle…"

"What?" he says. "You opened it?"

The Master plucks a candy from the dish and pops it into his mouth.

"Several times! You did not hear it?"

"I was busy."

"Oh, yes, I know! Tell me all about the Wraith. Did they try the cakes? Do they want more?"

Ronon stands, energized with fury. No one would be foolish enough to purposely dial a Wraith planet. While Ronon's singular arrival may have gone unnoticed, the gate repeatedly activating and closing must have seemed freakishly strange. The Wraith then guarded their gate and searched for intruders until they found him.

Unconcerned by all of this, the Master continues. "My Second placed a small device in the lining of the camp bag you brought with you. With it, we were able to track your location by opening the circle from time to time."

A "small device." Does anyone exist who is not concerned as to his whereabouts?

"_How stupid _are_ you?_" says McKay in Ronon's head. "_That was most unwise_," says Teyla. Sheppard says, "_Way to go, dumbass!_"

Ronon still has the plan in mind, so he says, "Lots of Wraith were at the gate when I tried to leave."

"I suppose the activity attracted some attention, but we needed to ensure that you did as instructed. Too bad you left the bag behind, but I know you went to where there were plenty of Wraith and left the wafers for them to taste. Were they grateful?"

"Grateful?" He moves towards the Master, towering over him. Sentry guards step forward. "Wraith don't care about Happy or the Divine One."

"Of course they do!"

"No, they don't."

The Master has eaten several candies and picks at his teeth with his pinky finger, easing out sticky bits from between his molars. He waves a hand over the plate. A houseboy rushes up with silent steps and removes the dish from the table.

Regathering his thoughts, the Master smooths his tunic.

"I am the one who decides," he tells Ronon as he indicates they will walk together. "I make decisions every day, some of them very…decisive. Concerning the Wraith, I know what I believe. And I believe that what I believe is right."

"Huh."

"Oh, yes! I decided that everyone would be brought to the Divine One. Then I decided how that would happen. We give them Happy, as you would call it. Then we take Happy away and give them the Divine One instead. Anyone who denies the Divine One is killed and sent to De'em, where the Divine One chooses who to keep with him and whom to punish with eternal agony."

"Sounds like a plan," says Ronon, thinking that it's a pretty stupid one.

"Quite a plan, indeed. I am a planner, as well. But understand that I did not plan to go to war. The non-believers, idolators and heathens were given many opportunities to change their minds. And by war, remember that I'm talking about peace, about living together peacefully even though we had to go to war to do it."

They have been strolling along a hallway that connects the banquet hall with more rooms in the house. This area is vaguely familiar to Ronon, but he can't place it.

"Ronon Dex, you believe in the Divine One. I know this because you risked your life to help bring Him to our most hated and feared enemy."

"So now what?"

"I have heard that you were a farmer. Your injuries will keep you from making contact with the Wraith, but should not prevent your helping us grow the pods. I want you to work with the seedlings for a while. Do you think you can do that?"

"Yes," Ronon answers, almost giddy with relief.

"Well, you would do it whether you thought you could or not, eh? If I said you would …but never mind that now."

Doors are opened for them to a clinical area. Now inside, Ronon remembers when he was taken here and what happened to him. The ache of need assails him briefly, then flutters away. Deep breaths. Never again…

"…know how hard it is to leave one's past behind, no matter how dreadful it may be."

"What?" Ronon hasn't heard all the Master's words; he's been lost in unpleasant thoughts.

"They must have missed you, for they came while you were feeding the Wraith. The Maisica gate is most usually unguarded, but since you were traveling…"

Ronon hears no more. He enters the bright room, the one with large tubes built into the walls, the tubes that pumped him full of Happy for days until he almost died when it wore off.

Three of the tubes are occupied. Only a glance and he knows who is within them. A flash of copper hair. The high forehead. Teyla and McKay are thoroughly drenched by the drug, saturated inside and out. It shows in their half-open eyes, slack jaws. The last tube holds Sheppard, still hanging on to his last shred of the here and now. His lips move with a soundless instruction.

"Plan," he says.

TBC


	20. Part II, Chapter 9

**Part II, Chapter 9**

"These are your friends, yes?" the Master asks.

Ronon stares at the tubes, speechless with shock.

"Then you must be happy for them. They will know the Divine One as you do."

McKay twitches in the restraints holding him upright in the tube. Ronon places his hand on the glass front, willing this not to be happening. He must be in Atlantis, dreaming with the headset on. The scientist pays him no attention. Neither does Teyla when he stands in front of her.

Sheppard's face expresses perfect contentment, almost beautiful were it not for the cruel paradise to which he has been sent.

The plan. All of this for the plan.

"When they are done here, I will personally lead them to the glory of the One Most High. You may assist if you wish."

"Yeah," Ronon says, burying his emotions. "I'd like that."

"Good! Now, you will go to the garden, where you will be taught to grow the Demon Plant."

Ronon could break the tubes, remove Sheppard and the others, but what then? Who would carry them home?

"I will," he says, and the Master smiles at him, unaware of his words' true meaning.

Afraid to show too much concern for his friends, Ronon leaves the clinic without glancing behind him.

The route to the garden begins within the Master's compound, at the entrance to a long tunnel that stretches so far that a track bearing a little cart is needed to reach the bottom of it. Thick boards support the tunnel's walls and ceiling as a guide pushes the cart along with sticks pitched into the ground and propelled by hand.

The pudgy, pink-faced guide moves the cart along the tunnel. "The garden rooms were built during the war, as safety bunkers for the Master and his friends, business associates and the like. He had it expanded, as you will see…"

This is boring chatter to Ronon, who is still stunned by sight of his friends. The thought of them in the throes of Happy doesn't sicken him as much as the knowledge of what will come once their craving begins.

"…vertical stairs leading to the top, for safety reasons. Parts of the tunnel collapse from time to time. During the war, when the Master bombed his own city to root out the last rebellious strongholds, several gardeners perished in cave-ins. The Master is wise."

Ronon realizes the guide has stopped talking. "Yeah," he says, as if he were paying attention.

When the cart reaches the tunnel's lowest point, the guide leads Ronon through a small entryway and into a room. Not a room. A stadium. A tremendous indoor field, lit with brilliant tube lights and smelling like the mulch Ronon laid over himself to hide from the Wraith. Moisture hangs in the air like a suspended downpour, casting miniature rainbows under the fixtures. Raised beds by the thousands span the length and breadth of the place. Within each bed grow hundreds of plants bearing the worthless yellow fruits with precious seed pods deep within them.

"You are not able to work with the larger beds," the guide tells him, glancing at Ronon's arm. "We are starting you with seedlings. The Master wishes."

"Master knows best."

"Yes. Now, if you will come…"

Once they have passed from this enormous room, they enter another just like it, and then another still, each vast greenhouse glowing with reflected yellow light bouncing off the billions of fruits hanging heavily off strong, dark-wood branches.

At the end of the third greenhouse, a short passage leads to a much, much smaller growing area.

"The nursery," the guide says, with whispered awe, as if trying not to wake sleeping newborns. "Where the journey to the Divine One begins!"

"Praise him," Ronon responds, without enthusiasm. "Why is this all underground?"

"To keep it safe!" the guide replies. "Many guards would be needed to protect these beds from poachers out in the open. Only a trusted few need tend our precious crop here. I hope you will not mind working by yourself until your arm heals."

"Don't mind."

Waist-high tables, each with a broad-spectrum light hanging above it, line the nursery. Growing flats show a hint of green over their dark-loam surfaces as seedlings reach up to the welcoming brightness. Each tiny plant could mature and bear hundreds of thousands of pods before old age finally withers its trunk.

Ronon takes a slow, deep breath to stop his hands from shaking. After enduring the white mist and the Master's drivel, the prickles and stunner blasts from the Wraith planet, he is impatient to be rid of this place forever. He thinks of Sheppard and Teyla and McKay a hundred feet above him, and how each moment he's delayed in this underground conservatory brings them one moment closer to a lifetime of voracious need.

"It is time for transplanting," the guide says. "See here, when each seedling grows its first set of true leaves, it is carefully moved to a small pot and then, later on, to a larger one. But you know all of this, don't you? Where was this farm you planted?"

"Far away," Ronon replies. "Can I start now?" He steps towards the growing flats on a nearby table.

"You are anxious to begin. Enthusiastic! But there is more to teach you before you can begin."

Again, Ronon's heart pounds with stress. Deep breaths…deep breaths…

The guide walks around the nursery, describing everything in it.

"We have just planted the pods here," he says, pointing to a seemingly empty flat. "They will germinate in ten days or so. We keep the soil evenly moist and fertilize often."

"I thought pods grew okay on their own."

"Oh, yes, they do! They say that pods grow on air alone. A bit of an exaggeration."

"Then why…" and Ronon turns towards the room.

"In the wild, pods will grow practically anywhere. Ours are much stronger. We grow them in specially mixed soil, fertilized with particular nutrients, a secret formula that the Master blends himself. And see?" He beams at the greenery around him, no longer benign infants to Ronon but something as evil as Wraith or worse.

"You make them more addictive?" he asks.

"We must! The wafers, bringing the Wraith into the fold. We cannot do this with wild-grown plants. They are too weak. Praise the Divine One that all shall know Him through our efforts."

"Praise," Ronon says, thinking about the pod from the gaily decorated box. One pod given to him by the generous Second, who knew how Ronon's history would unfold from that moment on. For starving populations, wafers are the perfect bait; a large, healthy man needs something cunning—a simple, irresistible pod to trap him.

"…and here are the first transplant pots. The larger ones we keep in this bin…"

The guide is but a ditzy plant freak, like Dr. Brown back in Atlantis.

"And that's all you need to do," the guide says at last. "Please show me how you will transplant a seedling."

Ronon picks up a tiny clay pot and fills it with frothy growing compound kept in a large wooden container nearby. The guide hands him a thin stick, like the coffee stirrers on Atlantis. The Satedan's large fingers make mistakes, pull out two seedlings instead of one, accidentally sever the thin stems of others. With help from the guide, he eventually settles one fledgling into its new home, gently patting the soil with his pinky. The pot is then placed under the grow lights and misted with water from a spray device hung from the ceiling.

"Excellent job! You may now do this with all the seedlings in each tray."

"Where will you be?"

"I must meet with the Second but will return later. I serve those who serve the Most High."

"Praise Him."

Pretending joy, Ronon smiles broadly as the guide leaves.

The glassine envelopes in Ronon's cuffs have come a long way with him: From Atlantis to the Ruined Planet, to the hiveship dock and gully on the Wraith planet, and now down here to the garden. He locates one envelope along a hemline. His injured arm protests, but it takes two hands to pry up the threads. The fingers on his left hand are still clumsy but eventually the envelope is prized loose.

Inside is a fine, white dust containing a fungus or spores or maybe even a virus. Dr. Brown talked about the substance, but Ronon didn't understand everything she said. The important parts, however, he's committed to memory.

He dips a finger into the envelope and brushes the dust onto some of the seedlings. Then he brings up more dust and repeats the action on this flat and that, until nothing is left. Removing the envelope from his other cuff, he moves from table to table, wiping the fine powder around so that every flat gets at least a little of it.

As expected, nothing happens right away. Blighted plants will grow as tall as uninfected ones, and their pods will look exactly the same as any others. First-generation pods will be less potent, but only just. The next generation, grown from seeds harvested from the first, will be weaker still. All along, the virus or whatever it is will grow in the soil and float in the air and reach every plant.

Eventually, some weeks or months beyond, the pods will have no effect at all, no matter how well fertilized or bolstered they are when grown. Even the pods grown on mature plants will become impotent.

Then, the people eating wafers or crushing pods between their teeth will gradually stop needing them.

By the time the Visans realize what is happening, Happy will be Indifferent, as Carson cleverly named it, and nothing anyone does will be able to stop it.

Ronon had hoped to carry out Elizabeth's plan and begin a new solitary life. He intended to take the locator chip out of his arm and never betray another soul other than himself.

Surely, Sheppard, McKay and Teyla returned to the Ruined Planet because they thought he had failed them again. His delay—spent praying and dodging Wraith—must have seemed like willful neglect, if not outright betrayal. Now they will suffer for Happy and kill for the Divine One to please the Master.

_Never…never_, thinks Ronon, leaving the nursery to complete his atonement before it's too late.

TBC


	21. Part II, Chapter 10

**Part II, Chapter 10**

When he is fearful of discovery, every nerve in Ronon's body stands on high alert. Prowling through the enormous subterranean garden, his senses sharpen to almost painful acuity. Nature gave him a brilliantly accurate sense of direction, which he uses to find his way to the tram tunnel.

He moves quickly, grasping fruits to the left and right, pulling just so to snap them off their stems quietly. The few people tending Happy plants in the expansive space do not notice him slink behind them as he stuffs the fruit into his trouser pockets.

A square, red button at the tram tunnel entrance calls the car from the surface. Ronon doesn't push it, but takes off, walking up the tunnel, feeling his way in the darkness with his good hand. A widening bead of daylight some distance ahead helps measure his progress as he comes closer to it.

Then, the bead of light disappears. The tram is coming, its squeaking wheels echoing in the confined space. With no place to hide in the narrow tunnel, Ronon steps over the tracks to the other side and descends.

His face collides with something and Ronon falls back in surprise, stifling a cry as his poorly splinted arm hits the tunnel floor. He vaguely remembers the guide speaking about escape ladders in the tunnel and, sure enough, he's blundered right into one.

"Smart," he mutters. He's forever telling McKay to focus and here he's gone and let emotions cloud his own mind.

Fortuitous though it may be, the ladder is not easily scaled by someone with a limp cast barely holding his lowerarmbone together. Still, Ronon's faced bigger challenges in his life.

His good arm pulling, his bad one holding on with the crook of his elbow, Ronon now knows why the Master ordered a soft cast—to hobble him lest he try to escape. Hardly the show of trust Ronon felt he's earned but not a bit surprising, either.

"Damn the Master," he puffs into the darkness. "Damn him to the Wraith."

Rising past tunnel proper into a vertical safety shaft leading up into darkness, Ronon remains undetected as the cart passes slowly beneath him.

In the claustrophobic conduit, Ronon forgets all that Teyla taught him about measured breathing. He's working too hard to muffle his huffing respirations. Every time he moves his fractured arm, the pain runs up to the side of his face as if striking him for his weakness and his dependence and for abandoning his friends.

A metal plate caps the escape chute. Ronon thumps his head against it, almost bored with counting the bruises and bumps he's suffered since first setting foot on the Ruined Planet.

Wrapping his legs around the ladder rungs to keep from falling, he presses his good hand up above him and lifts the surprisingly flimsy plate an inch. Night has come. No guards stand beside this point of egress. Perhaps it is so secret only the gardeners and the guide remember it's there.

With caution, he shoves back the metal cover, taking so long that his legs shake from weariness.

The aperture lets him out some distance from the Master's house but still within the confines of its guarded gate. From his left he hears voices.

Someone says, "Post B is secure."

"Post C, as well," says another. "Been a long shift. I could use some Happy."

"And disgrace yourself before the Divine One?"

"And _see_ the Divine One!" the other says, and they both laugh.

Ronon gives them a chance to save their lives. As if following his will, they leave without ever noticing him.

The Master's hover vehicle is the only motorized private transportation unit still in use on this planet. Ronon noticed it early in his return. Dented and scratched from Sheppard's manhandling of it weeks ago, the machine buzzed around the compound, while Ronon sat in the classroom praying to the Master's imaginary god.

Ronon makes his way to the side courtyard, where he believes the hovercraft is stored. Either the sentries are incompetent or the Master himself disbelieves in larceny, because the unit is unguarded. Its seamless doorframe opens when Ronon touches it.

Using the hovercraft isn't a very workable Plan A, but Maisica is far away, and Plan B hasn't occurred to him, yet. Squeezing into the front, Ronon fusses with the unintuitive controls. Pushing the green panel square is as ineffective as pressing the blue one. How could Sheppard have figured this out—and while doddering about barely awake no less?

The only thing in the craft that Ronon knows by instinct how to operate is a needle weapon tucked in the back.

Flicking switches, pushing buttons, Ronon recalls Rodney holding Teyla as she bled out from the dire wound in her neck, and Sheppard, nearly unconscious, guiding them to safety. Had Ronon never accepted the pod offered by the Second in the market that day, none of that would have ever happened.

The three of them must have returned to the Ruined Planet to complete the mission, the plan. Perhaps they lost patience as Ronon sat in classrooms and dove through brambles eluding the Wraith.

In a flash, the control panel lights up. Ronon doesn't know which button he pushed to make this happen, but the vehicle rises on a bed of air from the cobbled courtyard surface and very quietly levitates until it's on level with the mansion roof. It wobbles and lists, but, considering everything's happening by happy accident, not a bad start.

"Won't be long," he says to himself, feeling the weight of his sins lift as the hovercraft dances on its air pillow beneath him.

OoOoO

In his saturation tube, doused with Happy, John Sheppard sees everything so clearly.

His mistakes are rendered on a canvas of delight. How foolish he's been to wallow in dark nightmares with his disappointments and failures and grief. He has been given one lifetime. Why spend it looking behind him when the future is so bright?

To his right, McKay hangs loosely, moving his head to and fro, deliriously content.

He is happy. They are happy. Why not stay like this forever?

With a click and a gasp, the glass tube opens. The restraints holding Sheppard upright release him. He falls to his knees, laughing at the pain. McKay lands on the floor beside him, followed by Teyla.

Two sets of hands lift Sheppard to his feet. He tries to walk, but his legs tangle around each other.

"To the cleansing room," someone says.

And then he and McKay and Teyla are brought out of the clinic and conducted through a bright hallway. John doesn't really care where he's going, only that McKay and Teyla should go with him because he loves them so much and needs them so much and wants to share his unbridled joy with them forever.

"You're really something," he says to anyone.

"We are friends," Teyla says to the men leading her.

Rodney doesn't speak but smiles broadly, unconcerned about the past or the future, living in these flawless moments.

Next, John lies a bed so soft, with sheets so pliant, nothing could ever make him willingly rise from them. Instead of sleep, a dazzling display of colors and shapes dances before him. He is love; he is loved so deeply the thought of it hurts. Everything he's ever wanted exists with him each moment. He is the Alpha and the Omega.

Rodney and Teyla lie on beds across the way. John wishes they were closer so he could hold their hands. Then they could connect as one perfect world to another, in a perfect circle like the stargate.

OoOoOoO

Teyla's agonized moans awaken him.

McKay lies with hands over his ears, as if listening to her is too much to bear. Then, folding his arms around his middle as if to keep himself whole, Rodney groans, as well.

Approaching consciousness, John feels his belly tremble, sending out paroxysms of pain that radiate throughout his body, extending to the tips of his fingers, and, seemingly, the ends of his hair, as well.

"How much crap…can I be…hooked on…in one lifetime?" McKay says.

No one answers him. Even if he could speak, John wouldn't know what to say.

They toss and turn, crying unashamedly as the day darkens into night. A woman enters their room, carrying with her a wooden object with strings attached to one side. With a guard standing vigilantly beside her, she plinks the strings and sings in a faltering soprano:

"O heal the suffering heart within!  
O save our souls all sick with sin!  
Our bodies' pain shall thus implore,  
That we may praise Thee evermore!"

John grits his teeth as the sound assaults his ears.

"Stop!" McKay begs, placing a pillow over his head.

"The Master believes that music paves the first path to the Divine One," the woman says between verses. Then she strums louder, sings higher, as the spirit moves her.

"O cry for all your heathen ways!

The Divine One you betrayed!

May the love within you soar,

That you may praise Him evermore!"

The shrieking and maddening vibrations pound in Sheppard's head. If he had Happy, this would be but a lullaby to whisk him off to sleep. He knows now how Ronon felt to be want, to be need. He thinks of how McKay's eyes dilate whenever he speaks of the Wraith enzyme and of Teyla's wistful smile when she described the Dream Machine to him.

"You suffer now," says the woman. "Pray about it." She takes from her pocket three paper pamphlets. After laying one on each bed, she departs and the guard locks the door again.

Sheppard takes up the pamphlet. The cover bears the words, "Follow the Master to Glory!" Below the words is a colored drawing, showing people and Wraith holding hands before an altar on which is seated a pale man with a vapid smile.

"That's the Master?" John thinks. "He looks like an idiot."

The heaves begin for him again and so John uses the pamphlet to catch the spittle his stomach rejects.

McKay groans nearby. "I'm gonna die."

John says, "Think positively," not that he feels very positive himself.

"I am positive that I'm about to die."

Teyla extends her hand, but she can't reach far enough to touch Rodney and isn't strong enough to move to his side.

"I know you," she whispers, instead.

Rodney looks at her and nods. He seems calmer from this short exchange, as if they've passed a secret message.

Next John hears, "Sheppard! I can't wake her up!" Rodney stands over Teyla's bed, gently shaking her. "Teyla?" He takes her hand and curls her fingers around his own.

John sits up. That's all he can accomplish, so he's amazed to see that Lab Rat McKay has made it all the way over to their teammate's bed. Then Rodney's legs give out and he sags to the floor.

"Oh, no," Rodney says, and despite all the love and compassion that John felt earlier, he can't manage to show it now.

A woman enters bearing a food tray, followed by a guard who waits at the door. At each bedside she lays a plate. John lunges for his plate, seeking wafers, the only thing in the galaxy he really needs right now.

"It is real food," the woman says. "No more Happy for any of you. He is coming to set you free." She picks up the sullied pamphlet from Sheppard's bed and opens it, moving her finger down the page as if looking for the perfect passage. Then she hands the booklet back to him. "Read what the Master has written," she says. "Follow him to peace."

And John stares at the pamphlet's cover drawing. Now he sees the kind and gentle Master bringing worlds together, allowing Wraith to touch their hands to humans without wishing to feed. A dream builds, blotting out the room and sound of Rodney weeping and calling to the woman for help as he strokes Teyla's hand.

"You must believe he will come for you." The woman who brought the food stands very close, whispering in his ear.

John squints at her through bloodshot eyes. She is thin and spare, and wears a beige shift beneath her white pinafore bodice.

"Who will come for us?" John holds the pamphlet out so the woman can indicate whether she means the Master or the Divine One, the Wraith or the humans or some passage or line of text that will help him understand.

"He will come for you," she says again, taking the pamphlet from him.

Now that his dream has vanished, John's pain returns, creating the sensation of shredding his skin so real that he has look to reassure himself it's not really happening.

The woman leans in close enough to kiss him, and her lips brush against his cheek, which burns at her touch.

"You must be ready," she whispers. "Pray for deliverance."

"It's not a secret," John replies.

"Yes! This is. Look."

The woman brings the pamphlet closer. Written across one of the inner pages, in what looks suspiciously like the gravy on John's food plate, is the word "DEX."

John grabs at the paper, trying to put together Ronon with the Master and the Divine One and all of the other religiosity rolling around in his brain. The woman pulls back anxiously.

Careful!" she admonishes gently. "Do not let the guard see…"

"Woman!" A guard calls sharply.

"He was trying to tear the paper," she says, gently laying the pamphlet in Sheppard's lap. "Here, now," she says to the Colonel. "You must read and learn and come to know the joy of his love for you."

When she and the guard leave, John spaces out for a minute, thinks about the pamphlet and its secret message until McKay's weary sobbing breaks through. Sliding off his bed, he crawls over to his teammates, pamphlet in hand. Reality has cleared the Master and the Divine One from his head. Now he feels the full impact of the pain and the need, and the pity of Teyla lying so pale and still, and the deep well of McKay's worry.

"We'll survive," he tells McKay, handing his pamphlet to the scientist.

McKay pushes it aside. "If I want Krishna, I'll go to the airport."

'No, look," Sheppard insists, bringing the paper closer.

McKay blinks at it a few times. Their teammate's crudely written name doesn't register immediately. The colorful drawing beneath it fascinates him and his face relaxes for a second before Sheppard brings him back.

"It's Ronon," he says, tracing the letters, which have begun to dry and flake off the page.

"Oh," Rodney says confusedly. "I thought the Master…" and he gazes more carefully at the paper before him.

"The Master is bullshit. You and me and Teyla are the ones they burn!"

They are quiet for a few moments. Outside their door Sheppard hears a short conversation.

"They are ready for class," says a deep, resonant voice.

"So early?" another replies.

"It's never too early…" and he hears a sharp cry and a thump, followed by "…to get the hell out of here."

TBC


	22. Part II, Chapter 11

**Part II, Chapter 11**

Ninety-nine percent of good fortune is coincidence. McKay told him this, emphasizing that the last one percent is ingenuity wrought by genius.

Through a series of near-disastrous mishaps, Ronon has managed to maneuver the hovercraft onto the mansion's flat roof. He hadn't meant to; hoped instead to win his team's freedom by reaching Atlantis and bringing reinforcements to help them.

"Whatever," he sighs, as the control panel in front of him goes dark. Maybe he's broken it or it's resting. Whatever, indeed.

Leaving the craft, Ronon searches the roof for access to the building proper. A horizontal plate similar to the one that covered the tunnel's escape shaft seems hopeful, and, sure enough, it opens easily to reveal a staircase below.

"Coincidence," he thinks, for he can hardly assign genius to anything he's ever done.

A small landing at the base of the stairs includes a door to the bright hallway beyond. The Recovery Room, where Ronon threw food around and broke up furniture before offering to betray his friends, is located on the mansion's top floor. If Sheppard, Teyla and McKay are done in the tube, they might have been sent to writhe through the first stages of withdrawal in the same area. Lines on the plush carpeting show where feet have been dragged along. Ronon, the Master's faithful Servant, follows these lines to the door behind which people he cares about are suffering the same torment that he did. A single guard, a young man with acne blemishes on his rosy cheeks, stands watch. Around his neck he wears the golden symbol and in his hands he holds a needle weapon.

Ronon strides up to the boy, tries to exude authority. "They are ready for class," he says, without hesitation.

The young man, trusting because the Master trusts, says, "So early?"

"It's never too early," says Ronon, who then grabs the weapon and hammers the guard into unconsciousness with it, "to get the hell out of here."

Taking the keys from the downed man's pocket, Ronon unlocks the door. Entering, he stops and looks upon the struggling people he must bring out of here. McKay and Sheppard slouch on the floor beside a bed on which Teyla lies.

His armbone throbs terribly, the ache increasing at the thought of dragging three people to the rooftop.

He slips the needle weapon through his belt and pulls at Sheppard's clothing. "Get up!" The Colonel bats him away ineffectually, his body an uncoordinated mess. Ronon will have none of this. "Stand!" he orders, hoping that the impact of his voice alone will work.

But Sheppard falls back unable to fight the burning weakness of Happy's departure.

"Ronon?" McKay lifts his head and stares with heavily lidded eyes.

"We have to leave now," Ronon responds. "All of us."

"Can't walk," McKay mutters. "s'okay. Take Teyla."

Ronon shakes the unresponsive Athosian. He calls her name, takes her hand to bring her to him. Carrying her will not be difficult, but the others must make their way largely unassisted.

It's not going to work. He's going to fail them again.

"Ronon!"

With one swift motion, he pulls the needle weapon from his belt and aims it at the doorway.

"I can help you." It is Zin there, wearing her pristine white pinafore, with one of the medallions pinned to its front. She carries a needle weapon of her own.

"They changed you," he responds, keeping himself between his friends and whoever Zin might have become.

"They Master believes what he wants. That doesn't make it true. Ask your friend. I came earlier and told him you were coming."

She points to Sheppard, who lies knees up, guarding his gut with his arms. Rolling to his side, John looks at the woman with recognition.

"Hurry, now!" she says, tucking her weapon into her clothing, rushing to the bed to pour Teyla over her shoulder.

Seeing his teammate balanced there reminds Ronon of how Zin carried her baby this way. Teyla remains motionless save for occasional tremors that rattle from her fingertips to her feet.

McKay sighs a few feet away, partially conscious, attempting to rise.

"How did you know where they were?" Ronon says to Zin, as he swings up McKay and holds him tightly to his side.

"I have been charged with tending your friends," she replies, tipping her head towards a small metal tray containing three hypodermic syringes hastily shoved onto a table.

Straining under McKay's considerable weight, Ronon plows towards the Colonel and, clutching his arm, yanks him forward. He lands on the floor, flapping about like a fish on the bottom of a rowboat.

"I'm surprised they came back for you," Zin says.

"Me, too." This is all that he will reveal to her. By coincidence—or by design—she is there.

Sheppard reaches up and grasps Ronon's injured wrist. It is all that the Satedan can do to keep from screaming. But he can't deny what support he can give right now, and he lets the soldier bring one foot under himself. His wobbly legs eventually decide to take his weight and, grasping hand over hand, John stands, his face reflecting some hope that he might be able to go the distance.

Zin shifts Teyla roughly.

"Be careful!" Ronon tells her.

"I'm strong," she pants, removing the needle weapon from her bodice. Ronon's suspicious gaze isn't lost on her. "If I wanted to shoot you—again—I certainly wouldn't try to do so with a woman across my shoulder. Now…"

And together, Ronon and Zin and the tenacious people who came back to the Ruined Planet step past the unconscious guard and head for the roof.

The hallway is quiet as always. It reminds Ronon of his nighttime ventures around Atlantis, how he avoided people so well.

As they make their way to the staircase alcove and the rooftop above it, Sheppard regains more awareness.

"You okay?" he asks.

"Everyone's fine," Ronon replies.

"Good. You okay?" he repeats.

"You'll be home soon. Can you fly something?"

Sheppard says, "Huh," thinking it over very carefully.

Thirteen lucky steps lead to the roof. Reaching the landing at their base, Ronon carefully lays Sheppard and McKay on the floor. Zin shuffles Teyla over to Ronon and then locks the hallway access door behind them. The five of them crammed into the stairwell's limited space results in a confusion of limbs but, with Zin's help, Ronon hoists Teyla up the staircase to lay her on the flat rooftop just beyond the opening. Then he climbs back down.

The effort to make it to the stairway has sapped McKay of what little strength he had, so as Zin pulls him off the floor, the man collapses full-out.

"Open up!" The door rattles and someone bangs their fists on it from the other side.

After a moment frozen with alarm, Zin whips the needle weapon to her shoulder.

"Who is in there? Bring yourselves out!"

The metal door is quite imposing, but its lock will not hold for long.

Ronon struggles with Rodney, pulling him into a swaying stand with his good arm. Sheppard groans and, using the stairwell wall for support, arrives on his feet.

"Can you make it?" Ronon asks him, as he and Zin work to get Rodney to the roof.

The Colonel looks up the narrow staircase, at what must surely seem like an insurmountable distance, and shakes his head. "Take McKay and Teyla," he replies.

Whispers can be heard outside the door and then the expected sound of vials breaking. Ronon doesn't wait to smell it, but he knows the noxious yellow mist will soon take them all down. With Zin pulling and Ronon pushing the man's rump, McKay is brought up the stairs and laid next to Teyla.

Ronon points to the hovercraft. "Take them over," he tells Zin, before descending the steps one lat time.

A fine cloud creeps under the small space at the bottom of the hallway access door. It moves silently along the floor, just reaching Sheppard's boots as Ronon returns for the Colonel.

A little of the mist wafts towards Ronon's nostrils. The stuff irritates his sinuses and throat, dulls his vision and makes his head pound. Even Sheppard got some, and he's gone from sounding semi-lucid back to mumbling incoherently. Clasping John's belt buckle and propelling him forward and up, Ronon barely manages to keep him from pitching over and plowing his face into the risers.

Zin has packed Teyla and McKay into the back portion of the hovercraft. She runs towards Ronon and Sheppard as they approach, taking a good deal of the Colonel's weight. With quick motions, he is seated in the front, with Ronon beside him. Zin steps away from the craft as a blast erupts and dark smoke pours from the rooftop opening.

"Get in!" Ronon shouts to her, as he slaps Sheppard awake.

"I won't," she replies. "My baby…"

"We can come back. Find him later!"

"No," she says, touching the hand sensor to close the vehicle's door, then cocking the needle weapon she carries. As security men breech the top of the access stairs, she brings the gun to her shoulder and shoots each in turn.

Ronon can't get Sheppard alert enough to operate the craft. He pinches him and shakes and shouts his name and tells him what he needs to do. They are so close to freedom, so close so close, Ronon thinks he'd rather turn a needle weapon on them all than have them see another day with the Visans and their chemicals.

Outside the vehicle, more security forces reach the rooftop through other access panels. Although she is a good shot, Zin will fall. They will kill her or enslave her, but she would rather meet that destiny than leave her child by choice. Ronon can't stand to think about it. He pounds on the control panel, begging it to light up again as it did before and take them away from here.

McKay pops his head between Ronon's and Sheppard's shoulders. He's panting, trying to get his hands in front of him.

"That one" he says, wagging his fingers in front of the buttons and switches.

"WHICH ONE?" Ronon bellows, turning things and slapping dials back and forth.

A needle hits a side window and soars through right in front of Ronon's nose. Another plunges into a doorframe and stays there.

"The blue…green one."

"BLUE OR GREEN! McKay!"

"Blue! Go!"

And Ronon hits a square blue button and the panel lights. McKay's still reaching, not quite close enough. Ronon tries to pull him forward, but has difficulty getting enough leverage in the small compartment.

"Use the stick, Ronon! Both hands." Ronon wraps his fingers around a prominent lever, moving it left and right and forward, back. To get to the roof, he had merely allowed the craft to hover at will until it was in place. The stick guides it, but without the buoyant air pad between the bottom and the surface, it shudders and slides but cannot rise.

"The green one?" Rodney suggests.

More needles puncture the windows and are impaled in the frame. Zin cries out and, when Ronon looks up, she is no longer visible through the yellow mist outside. He feels a nick in his leg as something ricochets into him. McKay himself sports a small scrape where one needle just skimmed the back of his hand. Then, with an "OOOMPH!" he's face-first with the panel. Teyla has regained some awareness and shoved him forward with the sole of her foot.

Through the pinholed windows, the yellow mist begins its insidious creep, little puffs of it making their way in. McKay takes no time at all to get the air pad to work and, in moments, they are well above the roof, soaring out away from the Master's great mansion. They are not moving very fast, but at least the needle weapons and broken vials are behind them.

"Thanks, McKay," Ronon says.

"Not there, yet," he replies. His pale face betrays the tremendous effort he's making just to stay awake. "I'm gonna pass out in a minute, so here's how to move it and…I don't know anything else."

Ronon pays attention, but the mist and the little needle scrape in his leg won't give him a break. "Stay awake," he says, talking to himself as much as to McKay.

"Sick," McKay mutters, and he falls back next to Teyla and grabs his belly in distress. Ronon keeps his hands on the stick, moving it here and there. The ground is coming up to greet them and he panics a little.

"We're going down!" he says.

McKay barely has breath to speak. "Air. Have to be near the ground. Don't crash us."

"Yeah. Okay." But their speed increases as the vehicle dives at a treacherous angle towards the city ruins below. The crumbling walls, the dead metal spires of what used to be places to work and live and play, swing past. They hit one, an awkward blow, and are bounced in another direction.

The perplexing control panel has red lights, blue and green ones, silvery switches and readouts with numbers flashing. Ronon tries to control the craft, but it speeds up and slows down and tips and sways until even he feels nauseated. Who invented this thing? Who could figure out how to make it go?

Another dead building comes into view, shadowed bluish against the early-morning sky. Again, they slam into it and careen off towards another huge structure, a tall, windowed tower that rises imposingly before them. They will hit this on head-on and faster than any other as they've pinballed around. It comes closer, its windowed edifice resembling a hundred-eyed beast bound to eat them alive.

Ronon has failed. He will die having killed the only people that he still cares about.

A hand folds over Ronon's on the stick, while another gently taps one of the incomprehensible buttons on the control panel. The craft swings to the right, just missing the tower and then begins a calm, sloping descent.

"Sheppard," Ronon says.

"Stick with shooting things, okay?"

"'kay."

The Colonel is only half awake, but he's bringing them in for a sweet landing, carefully drifting towards the road to Maisica and allowing the air jets beneath the vehicle to skim the pavement and propel them along. His shaking hands betray the effort needed to bring them to the gate, and on occasion he coughs and rubs his face. With each little hitch, their transport swerves off the road, but he brings it right again after a while.

"McKay," he calls to the back seat.

"Wha'?"

"You and Teyla okay?"

"No."

Ronon turns to see Teyla staring out the cracked window, holding her small hands in anxious fists against her chest, and McKay bent over queasily.

It's a rough journey, just like before, the craft's balloon bottom pouncing over the decrepit road full of ruined vehicles from happier times, sadder still once they pass the city entrance and come upon Maisica's unrelenting fields of destruction. Sheppard does his best to circumnavigate anything large, but unavoidable collisions slam them around the interior making them collide with each other over and over until the gate comes into view.

Sheppard keeps the carrier afloat a foot or so above the ground, staring with half-lidded eyes at the ring as if it were the love of his life.

From what Ronon can see outside the spidered windows, Maisica looks benign enough. He taps the door, which opens with a sigh bringing cool air into the vehicle. Everyone closes their eyes and breathes deeply.

Then Ronon steps out and the door closes automatically behind him.

This is the last Ronon will see of the Master's failed holy war. He wonders if Happy could ever make him look back on this time with a smile on his face.

As on the Wraith planet, his nerve endings sense those watching from hiding places nearby. He needs to be sharp, like he was then. But no morning fog hangs here today, only the open ruins and the DHD sitting in the middle of them.

He presses one key and turns completely around, sighting down the barrel of his needle weapon. Presses the second key, swings about again. No matter where he turns, his back faces something or someone, keeping him vulnerable throughout. Three, four, five…sometimes it seems he presses too few keys to take him so very far away. Other times, like today, far too many.

A needle strikes the back of his hand, pierces right through, protruding an inch from palm and back alike, just as he presses the center crystal and the wormhole opens. The hideous mist rises from broken vials thrown at him from unseen enemies.

The carrier hangs in the air only a few skips away. Blotting out the sounds of whining needles, Ronon focuses on Sheppard's muffled voice calling to him, stampeding through the havoc in his brain. Ronon yanks the spike from his hand and staggers towards that voice, hearing it more clearly with each unsteady step.

He hears more needles hitting the vehicle and cursing from McKay within it. He can't see anymore and knows that he is walking only from the sound of his feet shuffling under him. Reaching the doorframe, he seizes it with his good hand. The touch sensor there sizzles and sparks, having been struck by needles, and the door stays firmly shut.

Everything wants to bring him down, the poison that drips from the holes in his hand, the gasses, the drugged pods and the heinous tube, and his own weaknesses.

"GO!" he shouts, pounding on the vehicle's roof.

But it doesn't move and Sheppard, Teyla and McKay shout together through the penetrated glass, words mixed up so he can't understand them, but knows their meaning. He wouldn't even try to save himself if they weren't begging him to do it.

As another needle sings past his ear, he rams the window with his fist, shattering the glass completely. All he has left is one arm reaching in to grasp something, someone, anything, or anyone.

He doesn't know who takes his arm. Probably Sheppard, maybe McKay. Their grip isn't very secure but he gives them thanks for trying. The poison has traveled quickly. His head falls back, both legs give way as his breath screeches in his lungs. The hovercraft shoots forward towards the gate, and whoever is holding him can't carry his full weight. A moment before entering the event horizon, their grip fades and Ronon tumbles away into the void.

TBC


	23. Part II, Chapter 12

**Part II, Chapter 12**

Rodney was correct: Ninety-nine percent of good fortune is pure coincidence. Whether shaped by the gods or the Ancestors or the Divine One, nothing matters save for its undeniable usefulness.

When the gate activates, none other than Carson Beckett is present to witness it.

A second later, what looks like the bottom of a moonbounce barrels through the wormhole, followed immediately by Ronon Dex, who lands like a rock on the gateroom floor. The moonbounce, true to its description, hits the staircase, changes direction, smacks into a wall, another wall and finally into the side of the stargate itself. Then, as if tired from playing, it falls to the floor in a broken heap.

For a moment, nobody moves, stunned by this incredible display. Then, as often happens, all hell breaks loose.

OoOoOoO

Ronon jerks awake to a cacophony of sound and movement. He sits up in too much of a hurry, spilling himself over onto the floor. Someone helps him back into bed. Moving to wipe a hand over his eyes, he clunks himself in the forehead with the stiff cast on his arm.

"Damn!"

A nurse pushes him back. "One thing at a time," she mutters, then takes off. He looks about and notices bundles of blankets thrashing around on three other beds.

Beckett holds one of the blanket bundles still. "Forty milligrams diazepam for McKay," he says, and Ronon understands that this is just the beginning of their sorrow.

His eyes catch Beckett's and the doctor comes to Ronon's bedside.

"I used the counteragent for the needle you took in your hand."

Carson checks him quickly, clearly distracted by his other patients' anguished cries. "There's a small amount of tissue damage. You'll be uncoordinated for a while. Headache. Your arm will be in a cast for a couple of months. Really did a number on it."

"Blame the Master," Ronon says, looking over at the other beds.

"They're doing very poorly." The doctor answers Ronon's unasked question. "Teyla is especially ill."

"Go," Ronon tells him and Beckett leaves to tend to the others.

A technician brings in the Dream Machine. He attaches the headpiece to Teyla and presses some buttons on the laptop used for playback. Teyla stops moving so much, saving her energy to concentrate on the things being fed into her.

Sheppard howls in delirium and arches his back against the pain rumbling through him. McKay lies face in hands, rocking and sniffling behind his fingers. Most frightening of all is Teyla, still as stone, surrounded by nurses, doctors and technicians, her small chest heaving under white sheets.

Ronon must find his clothing. He wears hospital scrubs and his leathers are nowhere in sight. "Doc!" He knows that Beckett is terribly busy, but this is important. "Doctor Beckett!"

His voice, dampened by the mist and the poisoned needles, barely rises above a whisper. Med techs hold Sheppard down by his shoulders and legs. "Restraints," the doctor tells another tech standing by.

Ronon grabs onto tables and IV poles to keep from falling as he rises to begin his search. A large, red biohazard bag lies in a corner, neatly knotted at the top. Cursing his fumbling fingers, Ronon attempts to undo the knot, before giving up and tearing the bag open. There they are, all bunched up together. His clothing, McKay's, everyone's, smelling of stale sweat and the lingering aroma of the stinking yellow mist.

Removing his trousers form the bag, Ronon blunders towards Carson, who busies himself with Sheppard's needs.

"Doc," he says, reaching into the pocket.

"Ronon, back into bed with ye…"

"No! Look!" From the pocket he pulls messy goop, crushed fruits that tumbled along with him when he hit the gateroom floor. He brings up a handful of slime, brings it close enough so that the doctor can see what lies within. Pods. Hundreds of them.

For a moment, Carson looks disgusted. Then a light of recognition goes off before his face darkens, again.

"It's not a good idea…"

"You have to. Look at Teyla…Sheppard…Just one." And he picks out a pod and wipes it dry on his scrubs as Carson shakes his head disapprovingly.

With a feral cry, Teyla throws the headset onto the floor and attempts to yank out her IV. A tech reaches for her, but she bats his hands away. "Do not touch me! My skin is burning!"

Carson moves to see to her, but Ronon stops him. "You have to."

"The headset…" Carson begins. "It worked for you."

"I needed Happy first, remember that?"

"I'm providing the input saved when you were given pods during your withdrawal."

"Won't work."

"And how do you know that, son?"

"Just know. It's gotta be her own stuff, her own…" and he doesn't have the medical words to tell him. It's technical or it's common sense. Either way, Ronon puts a hand to his forehead because that's the only way he knows to say it—to show Carson what he means.

With a resigned sigh, Carson takes the pod and goes to Teyla's side. She is smaller than Sheppard and McKay but received the same massive dose of Happy that they did while in the saturation tube on the Ruined Planet. No wonder that she is beside herself and sicker than the others.

"Teyla, lass, I've got…" and he holds up the pod, barely able to look at her.

With lightning speed, Teyla snatches the pod from him and places it in her mouth, chewing exaggeratedly to get all of the potion out of it. The infirmary stills; nurses and techs and even the patients seem to be holding their breaths, waiting for Teyla to be at peace.

"Another," she says, petulant and demanding.

No one moves.

"Another!" She shouts this time, clenching her fists like a child denied a second cookie. "I know that you have many, Ronon. You want to keep them for yourself!"

Ronon takes another pod from the pulp, but Beckett stops him. "It's not working for her."

"Then give her another."

"Ronon!" Teyla practically screams at him. "Give me one _now_!"

"What about them?" Carson says, looking at Sheppard's secured limbs straining against their bindings, at McKay, who has curled into a tight ball and presses his face into his pillow as if to bury himself.

"Teyla's the worst. She goes first."

For a moment, the doctor fiddles uncertainly with his stethoscope, unaware that Ronon intends to take down anyone who tries to stop him.

It doesn't come to that.

"Put her out. One milligram Versed," he tells the tech standing by Teyla's bed. Then he takes the pod from Ronon's hand, walks over and gives it to her himself.

OoOoOoO

Teyla hears Rodney's hiccupping sobs and Carson's futile attempts to calm him. Even with her eyes closed, she sees McKay struggling nearby and adds this to her dreams as Happy and Versed work through her.

"_Do not cry," she says, placing her hand over his heart._

_His eyes focus on her, pleading._

"_S-stay," he says, stumbling on this single word._

"_I will help you. Trust me." And even though she is dreaming, Teyla closes her eyes and presses her hand harder, not like a Wraith taking, but pushing her will into him, making a warm spot grow within._

_The scientist, this friend who knows her well, now, falls into a gentle sleep as his heartbeats slow under her hand. _

_Next to Rodney, John whips to and fro, cursing at people coming to check him. His eyes shift as Teyla approaches, narrowing into that deep, calculating glare reserved for Kolya and Wraith and other heinous threats. John doesn't want to be coddled, wouldn't tolerate her trying. He resists everything Teyla brings to him, so she feeds him what he feeds her—surety, faith._

"_All will be well," she tells him. "You are strong enough."_

When all of the things curing her are removed—the Happy and the Versed and the headset, Teyla slides into wakefulness and looks around.

Rodney is wearing the headset, now. His body is tensed. On occasion, his fingers jerk or he speaks to the people he's dreaming about. Teyla watches him for a long time, until nurses make her get up and walk around, put food and water and tea in front of her. They hold out little cups with pills in them, which she swallows without question.

OoOoOoO

McKay's not hungry in the least, so he resists when determined hands attempt to open his mouth. He imagines Wraith forcing bits of people on him and the idea makes him gag.

"Hold him…" Carson says, and Rodney can't believe that his friend would let Wraith feed him people.

Ronon says, "He's strong when he wants to be."

"Always has been," Carson replies, with a hint of mirth.

Four pods are shoved into Rodney's mouth and, even though his eyes are closed, he senses people relaxing around him.

Dreams come almost immediately, with rich-hued colors swirling gaily in his mind. The headset is strapped onto him and Rodney feels the pull of upload upload upload, taking ideas and beauteous images and all the rest. He searches for something known, a place where he was happy, an event that brought him joy, but he can't find it.

_Teyla places her hand on his chest. "I will help you," she says. "Trust me…"_

_He remembers the tube and, after that, how he and Teyla and Sheppard and Ronon left the Ruined Planet, the hovercraft careening around the gateroom. He feels Carson and other people pull him from the wrecked vehicle. He was so close to unconsciousness, no one would notice the scrape on the back of his hand, where a needle got him._

"_I'm dead," he thinks. "The needle…"_

"_All will be well." Teyla's still there, running down into him from the headset, pouring herself into his bloodstream. She pushes her hand harder against him, and, even though it's only a dream, Rodney feels her fingers on his skin as if they were really there._

_Sheppard groans nearby, the sound reaching Rodney through veils of pleasure and joy and terror. The dream Teyla looks over at the Colonel. Gifts, colorful wrapped packages pile up around her, bearing golden tags with "Love," and "Strength" and "Courage" written on them. _

"_One from me," McKay says, pushing his gift into the upload. The package has no tag on it, just his name scrawled with a green Sharpie on the wrapping paper._

"What?" Carson asks him. "He's saying something."

"Dunno," Ronon says.

_Teyla holds Rodney's gift under one arm and a gift of her own under the other. She walks to Sheppard's bedside, coming close even though he's agitated almost to the point of madness. The dream Sheppard struggles like a captured beast as Teyla approaches. Rodney tries to leave his bed, to stand beside Teyla so she won't be alon. _

"Stay still." Ronon's voice relaxes him, as if someone has tucked a warm blanket around his shoulders.

"She needs me with her," Rodney says.

_In the dream, Ronon lets him rise. McKay stands next to Teyla. He pulls in Ronon from outside his vision, until the large Runner is with them._

The headset is lifted away. McKay comes up out of Happy and the tranquilizers until he recognizes where he is. John trembles and sweats, even though he's wearing the headset and the pulp of four Happy pods lies on a tray near his bed. Carson's holding a stethoscope to the Colonel's chest, his brow creased with worry

"It's not working?" Rodney asks.

"Only just started," Carson replies, whipping his 'scope around his neck, quickly surveying the readouts on devices nearby.

"How long ago?"

"An hour."

OoOoOoO

"Your turn, Colonel," says Carson.

_Versed has John under its spell, but he's been traveling nevertheless. He's gone to blackened, pathetic worlds from which he can't escape. McKay and Teyla and Ronon perish one by one, blinking out a moment away from rescue, leaving Sheppard to live on as a failed commander._

_The pamphlet given to him by the shrieking musician blows by, its colorful pictures alive, moving, speaking the prayers written on its pages of the Master, the Divine One, and their blessings._

A hand on his shoulder brings reality back. Carson's got pods; the headset lies nearby.

"Don't…" John begins, as another spasm lances his gut. "I'm…better."

"No you're not, Colonel."

Sheppard closes his eyes to the doctor's worried expression. "Am."

"Your vital signs are abysmal. I'm sorry you have to go last, but Teyla and Rodney were sicker…" He readies the Dream Machine and the Happy, wipes the last fibrous strings off the pods' surfaces.

"No! I said don't!" The Master, the Divine One, the pamphlet with prayers in it, the woman singing in her wavering falsetto, all of these things wrap around him, protect him from the unknown future arcing away into the horizon. Were his hands not restrained, he would rip apart the Dream Machine headset.

"Stop it, Sheppard." Ronon pins John's shoulders to the bed with his hands and a potent stare. "Stay strong. Divine One doesn't exist."

Carson reapproaches now that John can't move much at all. "Aye, if anyone would know about that, it would be Ronon." He nods to an aide, who injects something into John's IV line that sedates him again.

John says, "It would be," as sleep descends. He feels the pods being placed in his mouth, feels Ronon's callused fingertips in his chin, helping him grind the Happy out of each rough capsule.

_In the dream, John still walks the horrible, charred worlds that smell of burnt flesh. Glass vials break at his feet. The mist rises, enveloping him, cutting off his air supply. _

"It's not real," Ronon says, as Sheppard takes heaving breaths, and stumbles around blindly, suffocating. "Put it on him now!"

"Ronon, he's going into respiratory arrest. I can't…"

"Doc…" Ronon growls.

John's scalp prickles at the headset is set in place. It catches in his unruly hair, pulling out strands on the top and sides of his head.

_John is curled in the dust of the deserted farmyard, hands up to protect his face. He hears footsteps on the gravelly surface._

"_Look up," says Teyla. _

_Sheppard shakes his head._

"The pods aren't working this time. He's not responding."

"They'll work, Doc."

_Teyla says, "John, look at me!" her voice ten times larger than she is._

_When the Colonel drops his hands and opens his eyes, the mist has cleared. Teyla smiles down at him and beyond her is blue, blue sky. McKay comes to stand beside her and when they touch him he feels them through the headset, pouring themselves into him like pure water._

"Come back," Ronon says in his ear.

_All of them—his team—bring him their gifts. The pamphlet lands in his lap, filled with pictures of Atlantis. Instead of the spiked sun, a real sun arcs across the sky, bringing dawn and noon and, finally, a glorious sunset cast in magenta and purple. _

_The four of them stand on the west pier watching the colors fade into night._

"_We're not gonna die?" Sheppard asks. "Or want it forever?"_

"_No. You'll get through it," Ronon replies._

Outside his dream, John hears Carson muttering, "He's talking in his sleep. Just like the others."

_The Dream Machine feeds John their gifts, their faith in him. It's safe, comforting, and more real by far than the Master and the Divine One and the pictures on the flimsy pamphlet. _

OoOoOoO

"They're green. See?" Carson Beckett holds a pod in his palm. Now that the slimy pulp has been removed and the seed dried out, it does, in fact, look green.

"Thought they were black." Ronon gets a twinge in his gut, but it feels more like sadness than need.

"The ripe ones are. You got these from a greenhouse, you say?" Ronon nods. "Well, that's why I had to use four times as many for the same effect as the ripe ones you're more familiar with."

"But they worked?"

"Bit by bit, yes." Beckett drops the pod into his pocket and, to his surprise, Ronon doesn't care about not having it.

OoOoOoO

The past few days have been appropriately grey, with rain pelting the city and a chilly wind blowing seabirds past the expansive windows. The Dream Machine has been handed--without info dumps or other delays--to Teyla and then to McKay and Sheppard, who were sent to their quarters to rest and pull themselves together. At first, Kate Heightmeyer had accompanied them, offering generous helpings of advice.

"Breathe through the cravings," she'd said. "Drink plenty of water and exercise when you can."

Teyla thanked her, McKay ignored her and Sheppard looked at her as if she'd lost her mind.

When the medical doctor and the shrink departed, Ronon always stayed behind for a minute to give his friends solid proof that it can be done.

"She means well," he told McKay one time.

The scientist poked at his datapad irritably. "She hasn't a clue what this is like."

"I do." When McKay looked up at him, Ronon said, "Maybe you _should_ get out."

McKay's face reddened. "I'll go out when I'm ready."

"Got nothing to be ashamed of, McKay. Not even with the enzyme." Ronon said. "None of you's got anything to hide."

So when Ronon found Rodney in his lab the next day, he felt a small swell of satisfaction.

With some campaigning on Ronon's part, Teyla comes out of her room. She roams the hallways with the Satedan, going to Sheppard's quarters, to bring him back out into the world. Eventually the Colonel cheers up. He exercises to the point of exhaustion but Ronon knows that's not a bad thing at this point.

Finally, the Dream Machine is locked up for good and all of the disks put away with the hope that they will not be needed again.

OoOoOoO

Today the team has settled in the mess hall, still humbled by their experiences but gaining momentum in their flight from dependency. People stop by offering encouragement and anecdotes about their own private battles. The magazine articles Ronon read so long ago weren't kidding: Earth is a basket full of cravings.

When Elizabeth radios Ronon requesting he come to her office, he's not surprised at all. Before leaving the mess, he takes a final look at his friends.

Elizabeth's desk separates them, which Ronon prefers. Spread out before them are some of the immature pods, the green ones, that Ronon pocketed on Vis. He looks at the pods, painfully aware of Elizabeth watching him very carefully.

"Do you still want them?" She has always been direct, honest. Someone who deserves honesty in return.

"Always will."

"Can I trust you to leave them alone as long as you are with us?"

"You want me to stay?"

"Your team does. I do."

Ronon can't imagine a lifetime without Happy. But he can imagine today and tomorrow and the day after that. A good enough start.

"You can trust me," he replies.

"Otherwise…" She doesn't finish, which shows more respect for his intelligence than he thought she had.

"I got your back," he says, using the most perfect Earth phrase he's ever heard. And he means it, every word, and not just for today or the day after, either. Ronon walks to the door, but catches himself. "I'm sorry for the trouble I caused," he says. Then, because that's simply not enough, he adds, "Thank you."

He was sure she was going to give him the boot, doesn't know how these people from Earth survived their own evolution, with their second chances and third chances, sympathy and empathy and compassion and everything else.

OoOoOoO

So much time as passed since Ronon last wanted Happy, he forgets it meant so much to him. This is the closest he's ever come to absolute freedom. It would have never felt as light had he not known captivity for so long. Perhaps in this one small way, the Master was correct.

The things shown to him through the Dream Machine do not dissipate when his need for pods does. The sights and sounds, thoughts and feelings linger. Running through all of it is the surety of Sheppard's and Teyla's and McKay's faith in him, as if it were Happy, something to feed off when he needs it.

Rodney catches up with his teammates in the mess one day. He is encumbered by an equipment case and has a datapad strapped to his back.

"Coffee. Sugar." He races to the breakfast line and comes away with a packaged meal that smells of cinnamon and a large to-go cup. "Gotta run," he says, squeezing between Ronon and Sheppard. "We're setting up a remote sensing operation on the Mainland and I want to be home for dinner."

Sheppard says something to Rodney's retreating back, but Ronon's not listening. Teyla replies, but he doesn't hear that either. He's thinking about Rodney's words, "Home for dinner," and about the long journeys behind him and why he chose to survive them.

For this, decides. A place to rest and be at peace. He has finally reached it.

He is home. And he is happy.

THE END

_**A.N.**__--Many thanks to my awesome beta, Aslowhite. This story was heavily edited after her read and, thus, all mistakes are mine. I am grateful to those who followed Ronon's journey to its conclusion and hope it was satisfying in a non-addictive sort of way. And, finally, to my long-suffering family who put up with my ignoring them and their myriad needs week after week while writing this, I promise to get to that laundry just as soon as I feel like it. _


End file.
